The Man with a Thousand Faces
by Adam the Red
Summary: The events which led Logan Kilpatrick to love and lose a Slayer in 1989 nearly destroyed him. Now he finds himself a pawn in twisted game which becomes intricately interwoven with the lives of Buffy and her friends.
1. Chapter 1

The Man with a Thousand Faces

Prologue

4 August, 1989, New York City

Spike threw the young woman against the side of the subway car. Her lover lay unconscious on the floor. The blonde haired vamp hissed as his face took on its natural, inhuman form. His hand closed around her throat.

"Wha's your name, slayer?" He hissed, lifting her by her throat from the ground.

"Fuck you," she gagged, driving her toe into his stomach. He groaned and dropped her, stumbling back between two seats on the empty car. Her foot connected with his jaw and he had to jump back to avoid the swing of her fist.

He caught her other hand, though, twisting it viciously, pinning it behind her back. "Your name, slayer, so I can visit your grave stone." He pulled her blonde hair back and inhaled her scent from her neck.

"Niki," she hissed, then with a shout threw her weight into elbowing him in the ribs. He barely felt it, but he released her anyway, taking a wary step back.

He frowned, looking about himself, examining the subway car as it was blanketed in darkness every few moments. "Well, in't this some sort of freaky deja vu?" He finally turned back to her, looked down and gave her slowly stirring lover a kick in the face, throwing him into unconsciousness again. "Y'know, I killed another slayer by the name of Nikki in a subway car like this... couldn't of been more than ten years ago..." They exchanged blows. "She was a dark beauty, though," he mused, smashing his fist into her pale cheek, "and a hell of a better fighter."

"Enough chit chat," she spat, "the deja vu ends here." She pulled a stake from her Ramones-style leather jacket and dove at him. Spike remained unfazed as he caught her easily and drove her into the gritty floor of the subway, pinning her cheek with his knee.

"You know what?" He said quietly above the distant thundering of the tracks. He brought his lips close to her ear as he sat on her chest and held her head with his knee. "I don't fancy your jacket," he whispered, then put his weight on his knee, expecting to hear the telltale crack.

Just then the blond haired man on the floor regained consciousness and an explosion of sparks threw the vampire from the slayer's body. The man slowly lifted himself from the floor with a groan.

Spike leapt to his feet and glared angrily from the man on the floor to the prostrate slayer near by. A sadistic grin spread across his face and he began to advance on them both again. He stepped over one of the already dead passengers and gave the slayer a passing kick to the side of the head as he made his way to the more challenging prey.

The blond haired man struggled up into a sitting position and began to retreat from the approaching vamp.

Spike stopped and smiled, seeing the fear on the man's face. "Looks like you're all abracadabra'd out—" he stepped back again to the motionless form of the slayer. He knew she was still alive and he crouched down and lifted her to his mouth, intent on tasting his third slayer in a century. He closed his eyes and drew in the scent. Then he opened his eyes and fixed his malicious smile on the slayer's lover. "I want you to watch—"

But the blond haired man had just been waiting for his moment. With a wave of his hand, Spike felt a haze of dizziness and disorientation. He blinked and when it was over, he looked down at the woman in his arms with a puzzled frown. Who the hell was this?

He dropped her uncertainly to the floor, then stood, looking around in confusion. How had he gotten here? He turned away from the man on the floor who was now standing up. Spike turned back around, about to ask–

But something hit him hard in the face and everything went black.

---

Part I – The Conjurer

One

8 May, 1995, San Francisco

He was grimy and the sun was too bright. These were his thoughts as he made his way through the crowded street. Finally, Logan's eyes found the man he for whom he was searching. The man was standing by a hotdog cart, under the broad umbrella, casually munching.

Logan's eyes were narrowed, partly from the sun, partly from distrust. He approached the man in the fedora, keeping his eyes away, always glancing at something else, until he was right next to him.

"I want him dead," Kilpatrick informed the man, under his breath. When there was no immediate response, just loud chewing noises, he turned his gaze on Whistler. "Did you hear me? I said I want him dead. I'm tired of waiting."

"I don't make promises like that," the demon answered him, swallowing a large mouthful of San Francisco's finest, "just suggestions."

"Then I suggest you deliver what we agreed upon." Logan's voice was cold and hard, tempered with years of smoldering anger and regret.

"See, I don't make agreements either," Whistler answered, balling up the napkin and tossing it in the waste basket. "Still just suggestions."

Kilpatrick gripped his fist in his hand. "I want him dead," he hissed, his eyes staring across the street.

"Well, Those Who Happen to Be want him alive," the demon began to walk away, expecting this man to catch up, which he did. He glared forward through his grimy blonde bangs. "You need a haircut," the demon informed him, then glanced down at his ratty blazer, "and a new outfit." A grin flashed onto his face. "Come with me," he said happily.

Logan glared even more distrustfully at the man he was following. "Where are we going?" He demanded, stopping in mid stride.

Whistler turned back to him, flashing him that charming smile. "Shopping."

---

Logan frowned, turning around to examine it in the mirror. "I look stupid," he said irritated, making no attempt to hide his dislike of doing anything unrelated to killing the vampire he was hunting. "I look like a pirate."

"Who said pirates are stupid, eh?" Whistler turned Logan around, delicately tugging at the white silk, making it billow. "There, now that looks keen."

"It's ridiculous and I'm not wearing it." He stepped back into the changing room and began to undress. "I sent three trained assassins after him," Logan said to Whistler, who he knew was waiting for him outside the room, "and he killed them in eighteen seconds."

"Well, he wouldn't still be around if he wasn't the best." There was a pause, during which Logan could tell the demon was pondering something very profound. "What do you suppose is the opposite of a Power That Be? A Power That Doesn't? A Power That Isn't?" There was another small pause. "Like the Little Power That Couldn't?"

Logan emerged, wearing again his grimy blazer and matching khakis. He threw the white silk shirt over Whistler's head with disdain. "I'm gone," he dismissed, brushing past the demon. "If you're not going to help me dust this son of a bitch-"

"I want you to do something for me," Whistler interrupted. "Well, o'course it ain't for me. But I want it all the same."

Logan stopped, a surprised and almost amused look on his face. "You want something from _me_?" He scoffed. "And just why the fuck should I help _you_?"

Whistler retained his gentle demeanor as he folded the silk in his arms. "Because I have friends." He stated simply. "Friends Who Happen to Be."

Kilpatrick whirled on him with a cautioning finger. "If you're fucking around with me!" He hissed, aiming his finger between the demon's eyes.

"I told you I just make suggestions," Whistler answered amicably.

Logan took a breath. "Well, may _I_ suggest, then, that _you _suggest the best way to kill William the Bloody, or I will take myself and my significant mystical resources and leave you hanging from the Golden Gate Bridge."

Whistler actually grinned. He opened his mouth but merely took a deep, refreshing breath. "Come with me," he said at last.

This time, Logan followed without a word, fully confident that he had left himself in the stronger position. It was always a game of cards with Whistler. He never gave anything away. Nothing you wanted to know. Only what he wanted you to know. Only what Those That Be wanted you to know, or whatever hadn't been filtered out by their fedora-wearing, hotdog-toting, morally-superior throwback / interloper. Logan gritted his teeth as Whistler stopped for another hotdog on their way to the airport. He'd been waiting seven years, and he'd be damned before he'd wait another seven. Some part of him laughed. What an apt expression. Everything would happen before he was damned. Everything.

---

Two

11 May, 1995, Manhattan

"What am I looking at?" Logan asked with disinterest. "Another vampire, another twelve ounces of dust waiting to be."

"Not just another vampire," Whistler replied gazing with Logan from a tall hedge at the vamp who held the limp body in his arms. "This one lost his soul."

Logan slowly turned to him, complete contempt on his face. "They've _all_ lost their souls!" he hissed, standing from the damp earth from his stakeout position to leave. "I've got better things to do than kill nobody vampires."

"This ain't no nobody vampire," Whistler grabbed Logan by the sleeve and pulled him back to the ground. "This one lost his soul two days ago," he explained, gazing intently at the dark haired creature of the night. The streetlight picked out only glimpses of the vamp's face, in all its unnatural glory, as he ducked to feed on the still warm girl in his arms.

"So?" prompted the self-proclaimed demon-killer. "So he's fresh, so what? Is this some sort of hard luck, tragedy? Am I supposed to feel sorry for him?"

"He's special, because he was sired two hundred years ago," Whistler continued undaunted, peering eagerly through the bushes at the dark figure who now moved into the alley, sensing he was being watched.

This brought Logan's fuming to a halt. "And he only lost his soul two days ago?" He made a sound of distant disgust. "Some processes are getting rusty, aren't they? What can you count on any more?"

"This vampire," Whistler went on, "was cursed with his soul. To remember all the deeds he has done. To regret them."

"Tough luck," Logan sighed, "so you're wanting me to end this fellow's misery, is that it?"

"No," Whistler finally turned to the man beside him. "I want you to give him his soul back."

Kilpatrick's eyes widened, his jaw tightening. He wanted to kill this stupid- He took a breath, calming himself. It was requiring more and more effort these days. "You want me to _what_?" He asked, trying to retain some semblance of rationality.

"Y'see, the thing about this curse is that if he ever felt a moment of true happiness, poof, there goes the soul and it's back to dental surgery." Whistler returned his gaze to the man skulking in the alleyway, watching them watching him. "Nobody really thought he had a chance of finding any kind of happiness, what with resigning himself to eating rats and all."

"So what happened?" Logan demanded, "he eat a particularly good rat?"

"Nah," Whistler shook his head. "A bump on the head to take care of the remorse, then a night with a pretty girl's apparently all it took." He went on, as if this were a textbook case. "They had some drinks 'So what'd you do?' 'Sorry, I can't remember' 'Oh, fascinating' and then kissy-kissy, smoochy-smoochy, he takes her to wherever she's living and... well, he wakes up soulless, she wakes up eaten."

"And you want me to give him back his soul?" Kilpatrick shook his head and sighed. "You know, I do also kill things that are evil. In fact, that's the bold print on my resumé." He raised a hand to silence the demon beside him before he could speak. "But- Let me guess, Those That Be want him for their coming-out party? He's the... caterer?"

"Do this," Whistler stood and turned from the hedge, "and you'll know where to find your blonde haired charmer." He began to walk away.

"I thought you didn't make agreements," Logan called after him.

"Call it good foresight." And the demon was gone into the next dark alley he came upon.

---

Three

16 May, 1995, Manhattan

Angelus turned as the scent entered his nostrils. A human. And not a particularly clean one, either.

"Angelus, is it?" Logan asked, staring absently at his nails. He rubbed them on his dirty blazer then looked up to the dark figure in the warehouse shadows. "Before you try to eat me, in the spirit of fair play, I must tell you that I've killed more vampires on my way here tonight than I have pounds of meat on my body." He blew across his nails. "Just something to chew on," he muttered.

"Before you die, then," Angelus sneered, "in the spirit of fair play-" and he launched himself silently into the air, his face acquiring the vampiric qualities, only to land upon the untouched floor, no sight or sign of the petulant human. He snarled turning around quickly, scanning the darkness.

Logan made a loud cough to bring the vampire's attention to the spot from which he had launched himself. Angelus seethed.

"If you're through embarrassing yourself..." Logan sighed distractedly. He turned back, raising a small vial of water. "I'm guessing that some part of you, corporeal or not, wants to get your soul back, otherwise this will just kill you."

The vampire hissed, crouching, ready to leap again. "What do you want?"

Logan sighed again. "I want someone to do to me what I'm about to do to you." He uncorked the vial and waved it tauntingly before the vampire. "In the spirit of fair play," he said again. "I'm going to give you three seconds to run-"

Angelus launched himself into the air again, this time, guaranteed not to miss. No holy water would stop him.

With a flick of his wrist, Logan sent a curtain of droplets into the descending vampire's path, then side stepped as time resumed its normal speed. Just a little trick from one particularly insane sorcerer.

Angelus screamed, landing hard on the floor, rolling quickly and crashing into a stack of skids. He writhed and moaned on the floor for several moments as the ether was combed for his missing piece. Then with a pulse of white light, it was rejoined with the twisting vampire.

With a groan and the crashing of an unbalanced wooden skid, Angel rose from the debris. Logan sighed, wiping his face out of boredom. After a moment of examining the exhausted, confused vampire staring blankly around himself, Logan turned to go.

"Wait- what happened?" Angel croaked, his fingers scrunching the material of his shirt over his heart, which still did not beat.

"You ate a bad rat," Logan answered dryly, then walked out.

---

"It's done," Logan began, throwing the empty vile to the table of the restaurant. It clinked as it rolled in an arc and connected with Whistler's glass. "Now where is he?"

The demon sighed, tipping up the brim of his fedora. "The answer you're looking for is here," came the cryptic response.

"Here..." Logan prompted, offering a hand, "in this restaurant? Here in this city? Here at this table? What?"

"You're very angry," Whistler observed with a raised eyebrow. "Didn't it go as you thought?"

Logan sighed and sat. "Well," he began, "he tried to eat me-" Whistler laughed at this, "-despite my warning."

"Did you give him the 'more vamps than pounds o' flesh' speech?" Whistler grinned, taking a sip of his ale. Logan frowned.

"What's wrong with- It's not a speech. It's true. Every time it's true." He dropped his gaze to the table then back up again. "It's mostly true." Whistler laughed out loud. Logan's frown grew. "So tell. Where's my city?"

Whistler sighed and grew sober again. "Over there," he nodded his head towards a man sitting at the bar. "He knows your city."

Kilpatrick rose, bowing his head slightly to the demon in cautious thanks. "He won't escape again." He moved to the bar and took a stool beside the fellow who was obviously a demon.

Whistler sighed and brought the ale to his lips. "That's what you say every time."

---

Four

1 November, 1999, Sunnydale

Logan set his glass down hard on the table top, making the liquid inside it jump. His face was calm and collected, however, revealing nothing of his extreme frustration.

"He got away again, didn't he?" Whistler sat, his own frosty drink leaving a ring on the table.

Kilpatrick scratched his eyebrow with his pinky finger. He finally sighed, taking a long drink from his tortured glass. "Yes..." he said at last, his voice even. "Yes he did."

"What happened this time?" There was an eagerness on the demon's face, he enjoyed these little get-togethers. They were an ongoing testament to the beauty and grace of the plan laid out by the Powers That Be. If Spike was not to be killed, he would live... well, sort of live.

"My demon had tracked him here to Sunnydale," Logan responded, "to a little grove near the local college."

"So what happened? Your demon accidentally attend a lecture and die?"

Logan chewed on his lip. "The Initiative got him."

Whistler's eye shot up. "The Initiative?" He nodded appreciatively. "Wow, we haven't seen them in a while, have we? What's it been - twelve years? They're here in Sunnydale now?"

"Fourteen years," Logan was shaking his head, "and apparently this town is some kind of hell-focal-point." He glowered. "There was a name the demon used, but I forget." He resented Whistler's cavalier attitude to failure, but he made no threats, no smart comebacks. He was calm.

"You look good," Whistler commented, peering at the man over his drink. "Not so... angry."

"Tibet will do that," was his simple response.

"Yes, I heard you're all into meditation now. Find your circumcenter and all that." He gave a little grin. Logan was unaffected.

"It's 'find your epicenter' and yes, I am feeling quite good, for the most part."

Whistler shrugged into his drink and muttered. "I said you _look_ good; you're as angry as ever on the inside."

"Shouldn't I be?" Logan snapped, setting his glass back down. "I'm your little puppet whenever you call, and what do I get out of it? You and the Be Crew work against me at every turn. Revenge was never this difficult." He sighed and started fingering his coaster.

"It's not just us," Whistler defended, twisting his drink in the ring it had made. "With everything working against you, you've got as much chance of catching this guy as Mother Superior of catching VD."

"What's working against me?" Logan frowned. "Because I can kill it if I need to."

"Well," Whistler sighed, counting on his fingers. "You've got Those That Be, for starters, whom you can't kill. You've got this wicked bad case of prophecy, which you'll find out about later," the demon assured him, "you've got destiny, which you can try to kill, but if you do, then get it on video, because I'd like to see it. You've got the forces of darkness, who embrace Spike like one of their own because... well, because he _is_ one of their own. You've got the more intelligent forces among good, like me, because we recognize his eventual importance-"

"Which is?" Logan interrupted, throwing down his coaster. "What the hell good has Spike ever done?"

"None, yet," Whistler sighed, annoyed at being interrupted. "And eventually," he continued, "you'll have the Slayer against you."

Logan's eyes narrowed. "The slayer as in the—?" He closed his fist angrily. He was quickly losing his epicenter. "The _Slayer_?"

"The one and only... Well, one of two, yeah." He took another swig of ale. "The blonde one."

Logan nodded with a small chuckle as the pieces began clicking together in his mind. "The one who's only still alive because I helped Tall Dark and Confused years back?" He laughed once. "Figures."

"Take a break," Whistler stood, patting the man on the shoulder. "Go back to Tibet, work on your middle, er.. Center. We won't be needing you now for a bit." He turned and began to walk away.

"Are you firing me?" Logan exclaimed in surprise and amusement. He took to his feet.

"Just making a suggestion," the demon answered without turning around. He left the Bronze without another word.

---

6 November, 1999, Chamdo, Tibet

The prelate stood at the top of the steps. He looked down to the street below – the street full of people, coming and going, Tibetans and tourists alike. Despite all that this temple stood for, there was little stillness; little peace in those outside these walls. All the ideals which Buddhism suggested were the path to enlightenment, the Eightfold Path, seemed only truly realized inside the temple itself. A sad truth the prelate had resigned himself to many years ago. He had decided then to at least dedicate himself to those thoughtful few who did enter the temple for those reasons.

One pupil of his in particular was in desperate need of inner peace. The prelate saw the blond haired man now sitting several steps down, gazing out into the throng of people. With silent steps in silent sandals, he made his way down to the man, going against his custom and sitting on the steps next to him, carefully arranging his red robes around his feet.

After a moment, Logan glanced at him. "What am I doing here?"

The prelate kept his serene smile. "You are famous in this temple for asking questions only you know the answers to. But somehow I do not think your Koans are designed to challenge logic so much as to release some of the struggle inside you."

Logan looked back to the crowd. "I've been here a long time. I've learned your meditation practices, your mantras, I'm even half-decent at speaking Khampan." He let his accomplishments hang in the air unchallenged. "But the peace I feel here is empty. You tell me to let go, but I can't even see what I'm holding on to. You tell me attachment is the cause of all of my suffering, but I fear I am my attachment, and my suffering is my life. Here I am called to cease to exist…" he looked out into the uncaring, disinterested tide of people, "and that will happen eventually, but right now I can't stay here any more."

The prelate's smile never faltered. "Logan Kilpatrick, you have many secrets and have done things that you would take to your grave, but I'm afraid one of the things you have been trying to hide has been known among us at the temple for some time."

The conjurer's head snapped in the prelate's direction. His heart was beating faster. "Oh?"

The prelate nodded. "No one here believes it is coincidence that at the same time you arrived the Zhŭdòngxìng began asking questions in this city. We know you are a man with abilities beyond the average human being. Our tradition describes someone with your peculiar talents as a Bodhisattva – a supremely advanced and enlightened form of life who understands the inner workings of the universe so well as to be able to control them for the enlightenment of all… but you are obviously no more enlightened or at peace than the most troubled novice who first gets his alms bowl."

"Thanks for your encouragement," Logan said dryly.

The prelate went on with a little smile. "I believe you are correct. You cannot stay here anymore. You have indeed learned all I can teach you. Buddhism itself – as all rafts on this water, is a limited vessel, to be discarded when you reached the far shore. In your case, however, I find the analogy closer perhaps to a craft navigating the rapids. The Sangha of this temple is a sturdy craft indeed, but I intend to send you to the most stalwart vessel I know: a temple hosting many faiths, high in the mountains surrounding this valley. The monks there are perhaps more equipped to help you reach whatever shore you are seeking."

Logan searched the prelate's eyes, slowly nodding. "I hope you're right."

The prelate stood, smoothing his robes as the blond haired man stood as well, also arranging his robes. "Come, let us get your things- "

Logan drew the small bowl – a Buddhist's only possession – out of the folds in the robes where he had been holding it. "I've got it right here."

---

Five

8 November, 1999, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Logan looked around the great stone entrance hall. The sight surprised even him. Wandering here and there, from entranceway to entranceway were monks of so many different faiths that Logan couldn't keep track. He picked out the red robed Buddhists immediately, the simple monks with skullcaps and the prelates with ornate headdresses. But there were also brown, burlap-robed Christian monks, some hooded and carrying heavy tomes and scrolls. One or two men Logan guessed were Carthusian monks, others were Franciscan, Dominican, Benedictine, Jesuit… There were Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant… Logan lost count as the faces and the styles of dress hurried by. Among the Buddhists he identified Mahayana and Theravada monks. There were Vishnuvites, Shivwits, Brahmins, and other Hindus Logan couldn't identify. There were Muslims, Sikhs and Jains. And of course, that ever-present filler, the lost-looking agnostic tourist populace who came looking for something they would not name and found themselves invariably in one place of worship or another.

The trek to this place had been one that few seasoned hikers would brave and Logan guessed those who lived here were not just passing through. This temple / lamasery / monastery, Logan had been told, was one of the oldest standing buildings in the region, built by the Buddhist missionaries who first came to this valley. They were regarded in something of a heroic light and Logan had wondered from their story if they had been the mere human monks the story-tellers had described. The monastery they had built was certainly impressive for a feat of human engineering.

Carved largely into the side of the mountain, the temple whose name was long ago forgotten had a broad flight of steps leading up to its wide front doors. The front hall beyond was the largest space in the building and it often served for the meeting place for prayer and group meditation. It could be easily converted to serve for Mass or Morning Prayer or even the many forms of martial arts taught here. Branching off from the main hall, at its end, were three hallways, straight ahead, to the left and to the right. Deeper into the mountain than this simple layout which Logan could see when he entered, the temple expanded into labyrinthine complexity, branching off into several directions and levels, having been expanded and deepened throughout the ages to suit different needs.

All across the cliff face into which the temple was set, however, Logan could see from the outside that dozens of balconies and windows looked out over the mountainscape, giving the temple the air of a Petra-like city: completely self-contained and content to be cut off from the rest of the world. The caravan which had arrived with Logan implied that supplies were brought here on a regular basis, perhaps bimonthly, but somehow this didn't degrade the dignified solitude of this religious haven. Somehow, in this unknown or forgotten corner of the world, many faiths had found a refuge from the unending religious friction which ground them down outside these walls.

Logan suddenly felt very small with his simple robes, the cloak he wore and the bowl he carried. What had learned felt insignificant and his abilities and accomplishments seemed humbled in the face of this place. These feelings excited him, igniting above all else a sense that this place, perhaps, could offer him whatever it was he was missing.

After ten years of drifting, Logan Kilpatrick had finally found a home.

---

21 November, 1999, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Haargan, the last Master of the order of Dagon looked the Chinese officer in the face. He was used to having interference from the Chinese military. They were rightly convinced that there were some seriously illegitimate things going on in this monastery. They had even gone so far as demanding bribes to report this monastery as vacant. But this officer was not here for money. He had brought a piece of paper which now lay on the old wooden table by torchlight in front of the old Master.

Haargan look with a scowl at the name on the paper. An American name. Most of the Americans who came here were tourists, some were priests. But the man whose name was on the paper was, according to Chinese Intelligence, a criminal with quite a file against him. He had apparently killed his family and fled America.

He might go by several assumed names, including Dwight Heinz and Christopher Young, but his real name was Logan Kilpatrick. The paper sitting in front of Haargan now was a warrant for the man's arrest.

"He's not here," Haargan said simply. He had no love for the Zhŭdòngxìng and was not about to break the sanctity of this place and turn someone in, regardless of what they had done: he would deal with this man himself.

"Harboring this criminal carries with it the death penalty. It is in your interest to cooperate." The officer had a smug little smile on his face. After all, this was a Buddhist temple: full of pacifists. Even the foreigners who came here were pacifists. Not one of them was armed.

"He is not here," Haargan repeated. "And even if he were, you would never find him. You have been here often enough, Deng, that you know if someone does not wish to be found, they won't be." The aged Master stood from his old wooden chair and moved to the stone wall, approaching one of the crackling torches. "And do not make the mistake of thinking pacifists are harmless—" at his last word, every torch in the room snuffed out, leaving the room in utter darkness.

For several seconds, Deng and his soldiers were surrounded by the inky blackness of the bowels of the mountain. Whispering sounds began to diffuse from the darkness, the clicking of bones and the chattering of teeth. With a whimper, one of the soldiers switched on the flashlight mounted on his gun. He screamed as the ghostly skeleton inches from him was suddenly illuminated.

Haargan tapped the base of the torch and each torch in the room flared to life again, filling the room with warm light, showing no signs of what had been in the darkness. The soldiers had their guns raised, aiming wildly with wide eyes. Only Deng seemed less than spooked. He had indeed been here before.

"I invite you to leave," Haargan said at last, moving back to the table to sit. He slid the paper back towards the Chinese officer across the table. "And next time you want to make threats," he glanced at the wide-eyed soldiers, "bring some backup with stomach."

Deng sneered and turned away, motioning his soldiers to follow. At the door, he turned back, and drew something from his pocket. It was a small silken sac, tied with a string. He tossed it across the room in the old Master's direction. The old man, with grace befitting someone centuries younger, caught the gift in his old hand.

"Should he eventually find his way here," Deng said with a harsh tone, "give him this." Without another word, the Chinese officer and his men left the torch-lit room, storming past the monks outside and heading for the stairs which led out of this dismal end of the lamasery.

Haargan watched them go, then turned his attention back to the small thing. He drew it from the silk sac and held it in his fingers. It was a small glass sphere, about the size of a small bird egg. His eyes rose from the sphere to the door. His expression hardened.

---

Logan was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the chamber, meditating in the darkness. This wasn't his own room, but with so many people milling about the monastery it was the only truly quiet place to meditate. As centering as the drone of the monks often was, there was something to be said for absolute silence. Judging by the lack of window or torches, this was likely a storage room of some kind.

Logan was concentrating on the rhythm of his breathing when there was a harsh pounding on the door. He barely had time to turn around before the door swung open and Master Haargan stormed down the stairs, his derisive expression able to wilt any ego.

"You have not been honest with us Mister Logan. It was not spiritual sanctuary you sought here, was it?" Without waiting for an answer, the old Master turned away with contempt. "The monks who come here are fleeing persecution, not _prosecution_."

"I haven't done anything wrong," Logan said with a frown. He didn't know how this monk had found out about Logan's past, but frankly it was none of his business.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but even in America it is not up to the accused party to make that decision." Haargan paced before the door, obviously very irate. "We have enough trouble here protecting our own without you drawing such attention from the authorities for legitimate legal reasons. Have you any idea what is going on here?"

Logan's frown deepened. Apparently he didn't. His face showed this to the monk before him. The old man finally softened his expression. Logan couldn't dig nearly deep enough beneath this man's worries to feel out exactly what was going on. The conjurer had just barely mastered being able to sense the kind of thoughts which were a direct threat to him: the violence just beneath the surface; the tension of a coming attack; the satisfaction of a superior force.

Haargan sighed deeply. "Logan, this place is not what you think…"

---

Logan was speechless by the time Haargan was finished. _Not what he thought?_ That was stating it lightly. Logan had come here thinking he would find an inner peace he had been without since his family's murder years ago. But this place was not here to provide that for him. After all, what would a Czechoslovakian monastic order be doing in Tibet? Not looking for inner peace. According to their leader, Haargan, they were protecting something.

Something very, very interesting.

Logan looked at the small glass sphere Haargan had left for him. A gift? From the Zhŭdòngxìng? He reached out to pick it up from the floor but it quivered slightly and the conjurer pulled his hand back with a frown.

As he watched, alone in his small chamber, the glass orb cracked open and a small creature emerged. It was a spider of some kind. Logan cocked his head. The little thing scampered around the small pile of white dust which was the remains of the egg. It hissed a little and made a little squeaking sound.

A pet perhaps? Some kind of trick – were they trying to kill him with a spider bite? Logan considered keeping the thing, but finally flicked his finger a little to build up a charge. His finger crackled with electricity as he prepared to incinerate the arachnid. He had never been a big fan of spiders. As he watched, however, he paused. Something was happening.

As the conjurer frowned down at the little thing, it grew. Within seconds it was larger than the egg from which it had hatched. Its globe-like abdomen began to bloat as if it was an inflating balloon. It's thorax and head followed suit, soon growing in changing proportions until the eight-legged creature was the size of a cat. It had some trouble lifting itself until it's legs had caught up in size to the rest of it.

Logan took an uncertain step backward, soon regretting waiting to destroy it as it hissed louder, its exoskeleton shivering as its innards swelled to even larger proportions. The conjurer blinked quickly, unable to believe exactly what he was seeing as the thing grew larger and larger, by now filling one end of the room, its abdomen pressed hard against the stone wall and still growing.

Logan had seen enough. He drew his hands apart, summoning a harsh and deadly charge. But nothing happened. He wiggled his fingers, trying to call back the electricity he had prepared only moments ago. But all he could feel was a drain. He looked quickly up to the massive spider again. Clever. Somehow this thing prevented magic—

The spider hissed and lashed out with one of its massive legs, swiping at where Logan had been. He ducked and hurried to one side, wishing his robes allowed for easier motion. He made his way slowly towards the stone staircase which led to the door to this chamber. He had always felt this room was more like a dungeon than a suitable place to meditate, but the silence at least had been peaceful. There was little about this room that was peaceful anymore.

Logan reached the top of the stairs as the creature tried to lurch its way towards him. The conjurer paused for a moment to watch it with a trace of pity. So unnatural a thing which had been conjured to kill him – so large now that it couldn't even fit through the door – creative at least but cruel to the poor spider which could barely move under its own weight.

Logan opened the door at the top of the steps and slid out into the hallway beyond, closing the door and locking it with a point of his finger. This far away, apparently, magic was possible again. It was here in the light of the hallway that he realized how quickly he was breathing, how his brow was covered in cold sweat. Not a big fan of spiders. A Jain walked by, clothed in white with a mask of white across his mouth to prevent him from inhaling any innocent creature. He swept the ground before him with a small broom to avoid stepping on any innocent insect in his way. As absorbing the simple act of walking was, he stopped at the sight of Logan's pale face.

"Are you alright?"

Logan pointed to the door he had just locked. "Don't go in there."

---

8 February, 2000, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

The low drone of the chant brought Logan's consciousness to a perfectly level plateau. There was nothing but the single, unwavering note. All three of him were together, here, pivoting about the spot in his mind; slowly turning. His anger fell through him, like salt through a sieve. It fell away into the abyss that was below, the abyss that was above. He was thin, like paper, but strong, like spider silk. He could not be broken. And he floated, slowly wheeling through the abyss, as long as the note was maintained.

He hummed along with the monks, the vibration in his chest and throat resonating throughout his entire being, warming him somehow, shaking out the impurities, like a deep tissue massage. He was feeling mentally and physically invigorated just sitting here with his eyes closed.

Then the wheeling quickened, he began to spin faster and faster, his heart beat galloping to catch up. At the center; at his center, a bright light was burning. It was blinding and beautiful and it grew the faster he spun. There was no world; no troubles; no monks; no chant; just the light and the abyss. Slowly he tuned out the abyss, settling his narrowed consciousness on the light, the spinning growing faster. No anger; no revenge; no Spike-

A hand came down on his shoulder and his eyes shot open. _Spike_. Logan whirled around, his hand clenching the sleeve of the one who interrupted him. But it was only a monk. A prelate, actually, judging from the headgear. The man leaned down and spoke in soft tones into Logan's ear.

Logan's hand slowly closed, his fist quivering. He turned his head slightly and nodded to the prelate his thanks. Once the messenger was gone, Logan slowly rose, arranging his robes around him. He looked for a moment out to the small rock garden and the sitting monks who still chanted that note, the one that was lost to his ears and his consciousness now. He turned, his robes sweeping over the cobbles, and left the bright garden, heading for the darkest corner of the lamasery; the corner that was his.

---

12 February, 2000, Chamdo, Tibet

Whistler sat with him on the bank of the Mekong. There was silence between them as they looked across the quiet river. Logan had left his robes, his habit, as he called them, at the lamasery. It wasn't really a lamasery. That was just its front. It was the center of operations for a displaced Czechoslovakian fundamentalist cult, who, among other things, were intimately aware of the mystical goings on of the world and accepted his help as a resident conjurer. He had gladly helped them with all their small schemes; destroying a small time crime lord who just happened to be keen on eating his enemies; thwarting the incident in Chamdo involving the Gentlemen; obliterating a dragon sent to harass Tibet, most likely by some Chinese Taoist conjurer... the list went on. It kept his mind off of... things. It also built his favor among those of the lamasery, those who were in direct control of the protection of the object of Logan's desire: The desire which had grown above and beyond his desire for revenge. But always they kept it out of his reach. Desire, they insisted, was the root of all suffering.

He had requested to be informed of all vampires visiting the continent from America, in the off chance that Spike would try and hunt him down. Now that small spy network had reported a blond haired vampire just arrived in Tartu, Estonia from somewhere in the American Northeast.

"If you go," Whistler said, throwing a small twig onto the river and watching it drift along, "you'll regret it."

Logan rolled his shoulders back and listened to the crack. There was something like Yoga at the lamasery, but he never joined in. "Is this a suggestion or are you trying to cover for a slip in destiny?"

"Destiny doesn't slip," Whistler gave a small smile. "Falter; maybe. Hesitate; perhaps. Slip? Fall? Never." He blew out a breath into the stillness at the river's edge. Tibet really was good for the soul. Maybe that was why Logan had no reason to stay. "You can struggle all your life against it," Whistler said thoughtfully, "but at the end, you become your struggle, not the goal, and you might then just find yourself in vain."

"Destiny will never quit," Logan observed, his voice even and thoughtful, almost as Whistler's. The meditation was useful, regardless of what anyone said to the contrary. "But destiny will blink. On that day, in that blink of the great eyes on the world, I will be where I need to be." There was a kind of distant wisdom and self assuredness about him; he wasn't making a threat or a promise, but almost a prophecy of his own. "And when destiny's eyes open again, Spike will be dead, and I will be laughing."

Whistler pulled another twig apart, waiting exactly seventeen seconds before responding, tossing the twig bits into the river. "You can start laughing right now," he let the little grin spread across his face. "You just missed your flight."

---

Six

16 February, 2000, Haapsalu, Estonia

Logan leaned across the table, his mug of blood untouched. "I'm looking to get in contact with a certain vampire," he said in a low voice. There was a moment during which the bloke on the other end of the conversation looked at him with dull eyes, waiting for clarification. "Where's this William the Bloody bastard?" Logan hissed, keeping his voice as low as he could make it to avoid unwanted attention. For all he knew, Spike was sitting at the next table. Logan hadn't seen him in a decade, he might not recognize him.

The large fellow on the other side of the table took a swig from his mug, licking the blood from his upper lip as though it were milk. He made a sort of sigh and indicated with his thumb an even larger demon sitting at the bar.

Logan frowned, examining the big man from behind. "That's not him," Logan turned back, fingering his stake under the table.

"He knows where," the man across from him prompted, settling back to his drink as if Logan had already left.

Logan stood, taking his mug and moving to the bar. He sat down lightly beside the large, dark haired man. Of course, he wasn't really a man. His long horns twisted and knotted with each other almost as soon as they met near the back of his head, neatly concealed by his long black hair.

"I'm looking for someone," Logan said in a very low voice. Half a dozen eyes moved his way as he spoke, including the bartender's. Logan kept still, kept confident. His stake slid easily out of sight in his sleeve.

"Everybody's lookin' for someone," the demon replied, lifting the hand to his mouth and biting off a third finger, crunching loudly. He set it back on his plate and brought a small napkin to the corners of his mouth.

"William the Bloody," Logan said very quietly. The demon took the wrist of his meal and with short, needle-like teeth tore a mouthful of flesh from it. He chewed with his mouth open, turning quizzically to the small human beside him.

"Eh?" He grunted, louder than Logan would have liked. Before he could repeat himself, the demon turned away. "Didn't catch your name," he said as he chewed, his voice deep and loud. Many eyes now watched them. "Never do business without a name," the demon exclaimed, tearing more from the hand, "specially when I'm betrayin' a vampire to a conjurer," he added loudly.

There were grumbles and mutters from around the bar and many eyes became averted. Many others, however, now looked at Logan, narrowed, some fangs bared.

"Would you shut up? I'm trying to keep this low key," Logan said, hushed. He kept his gaze on the basket of fingers set before him.

"Loki, eh?" the demon grunted. "You'll have to speak up. I've ears the size of fingernails." He let out a roar of laughter, pulling another finger from the hand on his plate. He turned, at last, to examine his new business associate. "Loki was it? Well, I don't care much for vampires, but I care even less for humans who think they're better than demons."

"I'm not human," Loki answered, his voice rational and reasoned. "I'm a Specter."

The demon squinted at him for a moment then his face lit up with amusement. "Good for you!" He slapped Loki on the back with a short laugh. "My third cousin's a Specter. Loads of fun at parties."

Loki nodded with a smile. "Tell me about it."

"So who're you looking for?" The demon asked again, keeping his smile as he munched happily on the palm.

"William the Bloody," Loki said with more confidence. "I heard he arrived here from Tartu today."

"William... William," the demon pondered this. "Can't say I recognize the name... Did have a blonde haired set of fangs arrive from Tartu last night, though. Might be the chap you're looking for. Stayin' in the old warehouse three blocks from here."

"He might also go by the name of Spike," Loki said with a much restrained expression. He held it as a rule to never give away emotion to someone who ate your species.

"Spike, eh?" The demon chewed absently, then began to pick a splinter of bone from his teeth with a clawed finger... one of his own. "Can't say I heard the fella's name," he grunted, "but I got contacts in the new world, I could let Spike know you're looking for him- if you'd like." There was a toothy grin from the demon, letting Logan know that whether he liked it or not, Spike would now know he was being hunted.

"Sure," Logan bluffed, "if you could give him one message from me, it'd be appreciated."

The demon nodded absently. He turned to the man after the moment of silence and could only let out a short howl before the stake slid through his throat. He grappled with it for a moment, his black blood oozing out, down onto his plate. He finally freed it when Logan's knife sliced through his neck, rupturing what had been left intact by the wood. The demon gurgled and fell from the stool, a mess on the floor.

Logan glanced around the bar at the many eyes now staring at him. He took the stake from the demon's stiff hand and drove it through his plate, into the table. He glared at the bartender and indicated the black blood-covered hand on the demon's plate. "I ordered no sauce."

---

Logan took his newly acquired nickname and reputation and strutted down the dark street, the knife again concealed; the small crystal orb he had brought snug in his pocket. The eight-legged nasty which the Chinese had gift-wrapped for him had been useful after all: it produced dozens of eggs a year for which Logan had found no end of use. His breath fogged in the winter air.

The warehouse was exactly where the ex-demon had said it would be. Logan stopped, leaning down and resting the orb on the gritty street, his breath making an orange cloud in the light of the street lamp. Tiny snowflakes fell all around him. He straightened, tugging his long coat into place. When the orb was settled in a crack in the sidewalk, Logan marched to the door of the warehouse.

With a vicious kick, he opened the door, the lock splintering against the old wood. "Hey!" he bellowed into the darkness within. When there was no response, he took a stone from the street and hurled it inside. "Hey, fuck-teeth! Come out and get some!"

When the enraged gang of vampires charged out into the street, led by a vamp with shoulder length sandy blonde hair, they found nothing but the scent of a human, and a small glass orb laying on the sidewalk.

The vampire beside the leader turned to his superior. "Shakes, what the fuck was that?"

Shakes turned around, assuming his vampire face, smelling the air. There was no sign of the direction the human had taken to escape. He had just disappeared.

"Wha's this?" One of the lackeys asked, reaching for the orb.

"Don't touch it!" Shakes commanded, too late. As soon as the vamp touched the small object, it cracked open, its thin glass surface scattering over the street like the snow, through the vamp's fingers. Shakes smacked his subordinate across the back of the head, just as a small creature scurried out from the shards of the crystal.

Everyone leaned in close to examine what was crawling around in the snowflakes. Amid all the attention, the little thing hissed, making some of the vamps back up. Within seconds, it had begun to swell. Soon, as they could all see, it was larger than the orb from which it had crawled. Before any of them could think to squash it, it was as large as a dog, its eight legs dancing it from side to side as it supported its globe-like abdomen.

Now everyone had backed up, forming a wide circle around the spider which skidded back and forth in the snow, its head still getting up to size with the rest of it as it continued to grow. Less than thirty seconds after it had hatched, it was as large as a car and at last made a lunge for one of Shakes' lackeys. The vampire tried to dodge the fangs, but the many legs soon had him, scooping him close enough to the jaws to impale him with the glistening fangs. The massive mandibles drew the shaking, screaming vamp's head into the thing's mouth and with a crunch, the lackey was dusted.

Shakes ran, as did the others, the spider having locked each of them into its memory. It charged after them, hissing and spitting.


	2. Chapter 2

Part II – The Key

Seven

29 March, 2000, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Logan kept his body perfectly still while his young pupil rolled his head from side to side, cracking his neck to get comfortable. Kilpatrick took a deep breath as the monks took up their chanting again. The note was pure yet rich. Took him, took his mind and lifted it, held it floating in the abyss. That great yawning abyss of loneliness and regret...

The young man sighed as he sat beside Logan, settling down into the meditation. He closed his eyes and listened to the man as he spoke, letting his mind go blank.

"There are three of you," Logan was saying, looking at first at the young red haired man, then at the rock garden beyond, then closing his eyes altogether. "The world that is you and everything around you, this is _sambhoga-kaya_. It is the air, the water, the trees, the rocks and everyone you know of." Logan paused for a moment to allow the young man to take this in, letting the chant take him higher, letting his own sambhoga-kaya assert itself. Soon, the trickling of the fountain was heard, clearer and crisper than ever before. The beating of the wings of the bird in the tree was as loud as the thumping of his own heart. Logan took in a deep breath and continued.

"Yourself, the being that sits in this garden, that listens to my voice, that is everything defined by Daniel Osborne, this is _dharmakaya_. It is your body, your blood, your thoughts and your mind." The chant resonated through them both now.

Oz's world spun in his mind through the grey mist of the void. He was shaky and uncertain; his center far from smooth and his being less than wheeling in harmony, but it was a start. "What is this mist I'm seeing?" He asked, his eyes closed, his voice serene.

"That is the _sunyata_," Logan replied without a beat of hesitation. "The emptiness that is outside of existence. The emptiness that permeates all things." Logan opened one eye to glance at the young man. "Ignore it," he advised.

"That which is deep inside you, the body of transformation, on the threshold of living and dying; this is _nirmana-kaya_." Logan took in a deep breath. "To control your inner self, your self of transformation, you must all three be one."

Oz took a deep breath and concentrated. He would do anything to control his 'self of transformation.' As his mind narrowed to exclude all in the world but his three selves – his kaya – the mist of the void in his mind dropped away. Slowly, like a curtain of rain, the haze of the sunyata trickled away, revealing the gently floating plane that was Oz.

Oz made a small sound like a gasp and Logan opened one eye again. "I see it," the young man whispered. "I see... it."

"Focus your mind," Logan counseled, "stretch your being out into all corners of existence, all places, all times, all persons-" he drew in a deep breath through his nose, smelling the array of scents the garden had to offer. "Stretch out and take hold. This is your sambhoga-kaya. Do you see it?"

Oz's breathing deepened. In his mind's eye, his life began to cross before him, in no order, just places, things, people, events. "I see it," he answered, breathing deeply. The people were talking, laughing, crying. The events were happening, loud and interrupting. Birds were chirping, babies were crying, wolves were howling. "It's very loud," he commented, his brow furrowing slightly.

"You have control," Logan assured, "quiet the noise. Quiet the voices. Quiet the colors."

Oz made a small nod and concentrated. Sure enough, the colors themselves seemed to quiet down as he ordered them. The sound of the sambhoga-kaya had lessened, significantly.

Logan nodded, satisfied with Oz's expression. "Good. Very good. Now you will take this self, take all that is before you and-"

The monk's hand came down on his shoulder. This time is was no mere monk. He wore not the red robe and head crest of the lamasery, but the simple brown of the Order of Dagon. The monk leaned in very close to Logan's ear before speaking. "The Council is recessed. Haargan has requested you."

Logan licked his lips then found his jaw tight with anticipation. "Let us," he began, addressing his pupil as the monk left, "let's call it a day," he suggested. "You're doing very well. Tomorrow we will focus on bringing your kaya together, unifying them and extending your control of one to the others." He stood from the small patch of grass and Oz did likewise.

"Thank you, Master Loki," Oz made a small bow and arranged his own robes as Logan did, so as not to trip over them.

"No thanks are needed," Logan smiled. "Instructing meditation is as relaxing and enlightening as practicing it myself. And don't worry," he added, placing a supportive hand on the young man's shoulder. "All processes of the body and soul can be controlled. Mastery of them is limited only by the depth in ourselves to which we are willing to gaze."

When Oz nodded, Logan returned with a bow and strode away to the Council's meeting chamber. Logan, himself was not invited to the meetings of the Order of Dagon, but he was usually one of the first outside the Order to be informed of their decisions.

He strode now to the very depths of the lamasery, around a descending spiral staircase into the belly of the mountain. The only light was the torch he now carried and the ever fading glow of sunlight behind and above. Soon, however, he emerged into the hall leading to the council chamber. The hall was lit with many torches and there were many candles set upon tables around which stood many monks, all in brown attire. They whispered in quiet tones, becoming quieter as the conjurer passed. They did not try hard to conceal their looks of suspicion and ridicule for this mere wizard.

Logan ignored them, feeling much the same for each of them. They dedicated their lives, their work, not to any goal, not to any purpose, but to a simple thing: to keep what was already theirs… and to keep it from him.

Logan pushed open the two wooden doors and strode into the council chamber. He turned and closed the doors behind him. With a bow before the only monk who still sat at the great circular table, Logan spoke in reverence. "Master Haargan," he said.

Haargan was scribbling with a quill pen at something on the table, quite content to continue ignoring the conjurer who stood across the table from him. For several minutes he scribbled away, certain that Logan would not leave before he was dismissed.

Logan's eyes shifted in uncertainty. He knew he was not well liked in this corner of the monastery, this corner that he coveted more than any other, but he was willing to put up with disrespect because of the opportunity presented. Logan made a polite cough. For several more minutes, however, there was no indication that the monk was aware of his presence.

Finally, without hesitating in his scribbling, Haargan cleared his old throat. "What do you think of us, Logan?" He asked, raising a bushy white eyebrow, though never looking up.

"You are a relic," he replied, bluntly. "You and your dusty monks are archaic holdovers from a long dead empire. Your faith has been corrupted and your creed is a sham."

Haargan was smiling, wide and full. "Finally some honesty," he laughed. "Try getting that from my 'dusty monks.' They tell me exactly what I want to hear," he coughed loudly, bringing his quill away from the page. "A side effect of age, I'm afraid. Everywhere I go, all I hear is exactly what I expect… most of the time," he added, sadly.

With a deep, rasping breath, he stood, walking uneasily around the large table in the torchlight to sit on a stool nearer to where Logan now stood. "Something has come, my friend," he said, the smile gone from his eyes.

"Uh oh," Logan picked up some trace of sarcasm, "I'm only your 'friend' when your cult is in danger. What is it now? Is it the Gentlemen? It's not the Gentlemen again is it?" He was shaking his head with a trace of a sardonic smile.

"It is a beast," Haargan was saying. There was no trace of amusement in his voice. But then again; there never was when he was recounting some new menace.

Logan shrugged. "Yeah? I've got a beast locked in the dungeon. What kind of beast is it now?"

What the old master said next brought all trace of smile from Logan's face. "It has been forced from its own dimension. It wishes to return."

Logan slowly looked up to the frowning monk. "What type of creature is this beast?" He asked evenly. If Haargan was worried about it, then it must be after what he and his monks protected. And if this beast _had_ come for the Key, then Logan would do anything in his considerable power to hinder it, or destroy it. The only threat Logan feared more than a threat to himself was a threat to his reason for being here: his reason for continuing to exist at all.

"I know what thoughts are in your head, Logan. Or is it Loki now?" Logan swallowed. The monk continued. "This time, we cannot fight it. It is beyond all powers of this good earth." He slowly rose, as if the mention of it was to be done with reverence. "It is a hell god."

"It knows of us?" The conjurer asked, slowly clasping his hands behind his back. Without waiting for a response he continued. "It will come here soon, looking for it."

Haargan turned, his robes sweeping across the smooth stone floor, making the torches sputter as he passed, returning to his spot at the table. "That is why we must hide it. Remove it from this place and conceal it as far away as possible."

Logan frowned, scratching his eyebrow with his finger. "It's... not exactly inconspicuous. How do you intend for it to be concealed?"

Haargan cocked his head, pausing in his perusal of the documents on the table. "You don't know of it then? Of its origins on this earth-" he sighed, deeply. "No, I suppose my monks have been doing a fine job keeping it from you." He let the papers fall back to the table and slowly sat, inviting the conjurer to sit as well.

"I invite you, then, to listen. The year of our Lord eleven seventy three; the Turkish princes are waging constant war against Christendom in the near East and the declining Byzantine Empire...

---

Eight

8 July, 1173, 13 miles East of Myriocephalon, Byzantine Empire

Kilij Arslan II, the Seljuk sultan of Rum, had sent his new battle force. It was smaller than one intended to sack Constantinople. It could not possibly defeat the orders sent by the pope. These were the thoughts of Alexius II as he steadied his horse near the crag in the pass. His knights were waiting just inside the pass — waiting to ambush the invaders.

Alexius' thoughts raced through his head as he watched the two hundred heads of light infantry march through the dried valley. Two hundred could not even take the monastery, he thought, squinting. What was the sultan up to?

In the dwindling light, his horse whinnied, rearing up and nearly tossing the prince to the ground. By the time he had steadied it a rider from the distant battalion had spotted him and was approaching. From the time Alexius looked down and patted his horse's great neck to when he looked back up, the rider had crossed the four mile stretch across the valley and was slowing up now as he approached the prince.

Alexius steadied his horse again, forcing him to look away from the rider who approached. The prince's horse began to sidestep nervously, tossing its head. Finally, as the rider drew up beside the prince, he looked up and understood why.

Alexius himself had never seen a demon. This thing which now sat upon the horse beside him looked like nothing he had ever seen. With a pair of horns like a gazelle, stabbing back into the air from his great head, his long black hair matching the mane of his horse and two blood red eyes glaring out from a coal-black face resembling any devil from every literature Alexius had ever read, the prince sat frozen in fear and wonder.

Arslan had conjured some demon from another realm. Some demon and his host of warriors to fight his battles for him. The prince's horse reared again, shaking Alexius out of his stare and sending his hand to his sword. But the terrible roar of the demon threw him off of his horse and caused him to land heavily on his right arm, breaking the bone. He cried out in fear and pain as the demon dismounted, carrying no weapon, wearing none but the slightest of armor and approached the fallen Byzantine prince.

With his left hand, Alexius felt for the hilt of his sword at his left hip. With a rush of air and a sting of pain on his chin, he drew the blade from the awkward position and held it menacingly before him. The demon stopped, towering over the prince as he lay in the dust. There was a deep guttural laugh from the thing as it imagined the prince as threatening.

With its head back and its eyes closed, indulging in the hearty laugh, Alexius threw himself from the ground, taking a bitter swing at the creature's head. His shout of pain from his broken arm with which he thrust himself gave him away.

The demon ducked its head down, howling as the blade sliced through the top of its head, clanging against its one horn, and dropping a fragment of scalp and long black hair into the dust. Black blood poured from the head wound, the creature's hand coming up to cover it. With a screech, it brought its heel into Alexius' chest, throwing him back into the dust.

The demon quickly mounted his horse, just as the three scouts from the company of knights approached from the pass. They had heard much of the fight and charged forward immediately with swords drawn, shouting wildly.

The demon's eyes flashed as he spurred his horse back to his own troops, his horse and himself vanishing in a flash of green light. The scouts held up their horses, each dismounting and kneeling beside the wounded prince.

One knight reached into the dust and pulled from it a long lock of black hair, bloodied at one end. "What sorcery is this?" The knight whispered, observing the black blood.

Alexius stood, steadying himself on his sword and comrades. "Take it to Lord Tarnis. He will know."

The four horsed riders thundered back into the pass to warn of the approaching army.

---

Nine

1 August, 1989, New York City

Logan rolled over his lover, dropping his lips to her neck. She let out a low moan. "I love you," he whispered, over and over, across her shoulders as his trail of kisses led him around her body. "I never want to let you go," he took her flesh in his mouth, making her arch. Her hands held his head, her fingers in his sweat-matted hair.

"Don't ever," she groaned, "ever let me go." Her head tossed from side to side, her blonde hair blanketing the soft pillow. "You'll never lose me," Niki groaned as he feasted on her.

Suddenly he stopped. He pushed himself up on his elbows and lay heavily down beside her. She whimpered slightly, unhappy that he had stopped. "What is it?" She asked, propping her head up with one elbow. "What's wrong?"

"You can't promise anything," he said anxiously, a little nervously. "You can't promise a thing like that." He rolled over, turning his back to her in their hotel room bed.

"Hey, I'm sorry," she said, her hands sliding up his bare back. "I didn't mean it that way, you know... I know I can't promise it–"

Logan rolled over again. He was plagued with guilt. Always the guilt, following him, tracking him down. It caught up with him, here, even tonight in this bed and he was helpless against it. When he looked into Niki's eyes he saw little of his wife, dead now for more than a year, and that ate him up inside. How could he have waited no more than a year?

Logan closed his eyes and lay back on his back. Would he have survived another year? He still had the nightmares. His wife and daughter; massacred. His parents, his friends, his coworkers... everyone he had ever known, all killed by that... mother fucking Werlech demon.

"I'm going to do everything I can to survive," she promised. "How's that?" A year ago she wouldn't have valued her life so much – wouldn't have worked so hard to save her life… for him or anyone else. But now… but there would be time for that later. Time to talk about Sami later. Her hand slid over his stomach and around his side and pulled him towards her with her Slayer strength.

He rolled on top of her, then knelt on the bed and pulled them both onto the floor. She laughed and fell under him. He straddled her on the thick carpet. "What am I to you?" He asked, tenderly bringing his mouth to her chest.

"We haven't seen each other in a year – then the first thing we do when we meet is fuck. Don't ruin that." She flicked him in the chest.

"I'm not ruining!" he argued with a laugh. He leaned down and kissed her lips. "This is me catching up. How've you been?"

She sighed deeply. "Eking out a living teaching martial arts. Dodging Council assassins. And…" she thought for a moment – tell him? "And moving on." There would be plenty of time to tell him…

He stopped and looked so deeply into her grey blue eyes that she stopped giggling. "Am I everything to you?" She blinked for a moment and said nothing. "You would live without me, wouldn't you?" He said gently, walking his fingers over her stomach, dancing them around her navel. "You're like a rock, so steady, so solid." Her flesh trembled as his fingers danced lower.

She giggled. "I'd like to think I'm soft in some places." To this he smiled sadly.

"You're strong like a rock, here" he pressed his fingers above her heart.

She gazed longingly into his eyes for a moment, knowing it was what he wanted. She pursed her lips, wanting to say something, anything, to ease this moment for him. Finally, she reached down and took him in her hand. "You're like a rock here," she grinned mischievously, hoping he would respond.

After a heartbeat or two he grinned back. "Well, there's only one thing to be done, then, isn't there?" He grinned seductively and leaned down to kiss her again.

---

Ten

8 July, 1173, 8 miles East of Myriocephalon, Byzantine Empire

Alexius gazed thoughtfully into the ranks of the enemy, his breath making a cloud, near invisible before him.

It was now quite dark, the only light being the multitude of torches and small fires of the hidden camp of Alexius' knights. They had drawn the enemy on such a course, away from the monastery, and now had them in a cull-de-sac. The four score and five knights loyal to Byzantium, to Alexius, along with the rest of the company, had ridden around and behind the approaching infantry, now cutting off their only escape from this deep valley. They would have to fight.

But the fight did not come from the invaders. As Alexius himself took the watch upon his horse, he observed no movement in the enemy ranks. They had come to the rugged cliff wall and stopped. Perhaps they had not seen the cavalry ride around them? Alexius pondered this, rubbing his chin distractedly. If it was true, then by cover of darkness, his knights had the element of surprise.

Alexius spurred his horse around, pulling hard on the reins and trotting off back to the camp. When he reached the center of the rows of small tents, near the largest of the fires, he halted and dismounted. His squire was present to tend his horse while his first commander stood from the circle of men around the fire. "My prince," he began with a small bow.

"Quickly," Alexius prodded, holding his broken arm tight to his chest, "tell me, what has the lord Tarnis concluded of the sorcery of the enemy. Must we call for reinforcements?"

The commander straightened, pulling his hands to his sides to report. "Sir, the lord Tarnis has examined the fragment of flesh thoroughly."

"And what is his conclusion?" The prince urged, "do we outmatch them still?"

The knight made a little sigh. "The lord magister believes, sir, that the soldier in command of the invading army is... not worldly in origin."

Alexius frowned. "Some legionnaire of Satan?" He glanced into the crackling fire, his brow furrowed thoughtfully. "He can be injured. Can he be killed?"

The knight again made a little sigh, as if the entire situation was beyond all hope or reason. "If he bleeds, he can be made to die," the knight responded of his own intellect. "The lord Tarnis, however, was more concerned with his abilities than his mortality."

"His great speed– his vanishing?" Alexius prodded. "Does Tarnis have some explanation?"

The knight winced, almost imperceptibly. "Er, not as of yet, my lord, but he and the monks of the monastery we evacuated are intent on their examination... and their research."

"Research?" Alexius flared, his broken arm momentarily forgotten. He took the knight firmly by the shoulder with his right hand. "We sit on the edge of a war with unworldly forces and he has monks reading scrolls?" Alexius shook the knight slightly, making his arm throb. "Is there no blessing? No rite to vanquish this... abomination?"

"I believe that is what they are researching, my lord," the knight shrugged. "It pains me as well to see our company's fate in the hands of the academics, but such is God's will."

Alexius sighed, dropping his splinted arm to his side again. "We will give them until midnight. Then we will attack." The knight nodded. "Have the men ready with arms and horses. We will leave the academics and all unnecessary in company at camp. Midnight," the prince repeated, "and we ride through them."

"Yes, my prince," the knight bowed and turned, going to the fire to spread the news to his men.

---

Eleven

9 July, 1173, 8 miles East of Myriocephalon, Byzantine Empire

Alexius shouted hoarsely and raised his left hand, and the sword in it, high above his head. His throat hurt from shouting so much. There were so many to kill. It was only now becoming light out. His sword carved down through the air with a whistling sound and cleaved the demon in two. There was no steel showing on the prince's sword this morning, only the black of the creatures' blood.

As the knights of Byzantium had rode through the ranks of the enemy, it had been clear that it was not just one demon they were fighting. Suddenly eighty five cavalrymen seemed like an impossibly small force. But the surprise seemed to have been with them as they charged among the rows of demons, scattering and clustering them into confusion and disarray. There seemed to be no captains, no commanders. Just the general who appeared and disappeared amid the battle in his damned green light, each time managing to kill another brave knight of Alexius' company.

But the battle was going well for Christendom; more than three quarters of the demon foe were slaughtered, laying broken and cleaved on the field, never having managed to leave from the base of the cliff. They were unlike any earthly army Alexius had ever fought. They seemed only warrior-like in their savage nature and cruelty, not at all in strategy or determination. They fled wailing when charged; they abandoned their general when he appeared near them, as if they knew he would draw them to their deaths; they lingered over their kills, dwelling on the corpses instead of returning to the battle; and they never once shed a tear for their fallen comrades.

Now they were beaten; the last of them now rounded up and cut to pieces, none begging for mercy or surrender. They spat and feigned attack even while being slain for mercy's sake.

Alexius turned his horse for the encampment, noticing a group of monks on horseback approaching the field from the pass. He almost smiled. Now that we have the academic evidence they are vulnerable to the sword, he thought, Tarnis will no doubt give his consent to an attack.

These words were still in the prince's head when the dark horseman appeared beside him in a blur of green light. He had only time enough to raise his left arm to block the creature's blow with his sword. The demon had quickly taken to the sort of fighting that was done in this realm; salvaging a sword from a fallen knight and using his immense strength and skill of transience to elude and kill Alexius' best men.

Now the sword of the demon came down with a shower of sparks onto the prince's own blade. The force was of such crushing magnitude that it threw the prince from his horse, again. Landing this time on a soft corpse, Alexius broke nothing, but he still cried out in fear as the demon with the notch in his left horn jumped from his horse, kicking away one of his own dead soldiers, and stalked towards the fallen prince, bloodied weapon in hand.

This time, Alexius had the confidence of experience. This demon still bled from their last encounter. The prince scrambled to his feet and, holding his broken arm out for balance, lunged with his sword to the creature approaching.

The demon parried, the reverberations of the blow to the steel making Alexius' left arm hurt. With a shout of defiance, he swung right, bringing his blade through the air where, an instant ago, the demon's face had been.

The bite of steel caught Alexius in the shoulder from behind. He cried out in pain, dropping his sword, just as the sound of approaching horses filled his ears. He stood defenselessly, his injured arms at his sides as the demon raised his sword for the kill.

"_Aabrun morthii_," chanted Tarnis, dropping off his horse and approaching the two. The demon flinched, his raised sword wavering as the words enacted some fission inside him.

"_Aabrun desocrii,_" the priest continued. He was holding a collection of parchments which he occasionally glanced at. The demon dropped the sword and doubled over, placing a hand to his massive chest. He groaned in agony. "_Archolludai rhet moru desocrii,_" Tarnis was now joined by several other monks. They all chanted with him in unison. "_Desocrii artum!_" they finished, sending a green pulse of light from the demon's chest. He bellowed and fell to the ground, writhing in pain. Everyone backed up, including the prince, who had now reclaimed his sword. There was a moment of silence while the green energy subsided, then the demon moaned and slowly got to his feet.

Alexius looked confusedly to the monks, who were apparently at a loss, then gave a shout of havoc and charged with his sword at the disoriented demon. His first swing took off the demon's left arm at the shoulder, his second swing, the right arm at the elbow. A round swing brought the blade underneath him and severed the demon's left leg below the knee.

The demon snarled and howled falling backwards in pain and rage, betrayed by the subdued entity inside him. Alexius raised the sword above his head, his eyes filled with fury, ready to drive the black steel into this enemy of Christ. The hand of Tarnis caught his, however, before he could strike.

Alexius fixed the priest with a cold stare, conveying the need for this creature's death. Tarnis took the stare and returned one of gentle understanding. After a moment's silence, punctuated only by the moans of the injured demon, Tarnis brought the prince's sword to its sheath.

"Follow me," he ordered, turning to his monks, "bring the creature."

With the creature strapped across the flanks of Alexius' horse, like a hart he had slain, he and the monks and Tarnis the priest galloped to the small river which ran out of the nearby pass, behind a row of cedars, close to the encampment.

Alexius dropped the moaning, writhing body unceremoniously onto the grass on the bank of the river. Tarnis was looking through his pages, reading over again the fruits of his research. Much of what he had learned was hearsay and myth. Much of it was invented, constructed from other similar traditions, though none truly seemed similar enough to this.

"Release me," the demon hissed, his voice thick with an unfamiliar tone. "Or I promise you death."

Tarnis pointed to the demon. Haargan and two other monks took the body and pulled it into the river, letting the black blood stain the waters. They held him still as he struggled, preventing him from drifting with the current.

"I will find it," the demon thrashed in the water, soaking the monks and the priest. The prince retreated slightly so as not to be drenched. "I will find it again," the creature continued, his voice faltering as his strength gave. "Take it where you will. I will-"

"_Aabrun acunii,_" Tarnis commanded calmly. The demon shrieked. There was a pealing, like a high pitched bell, and the three monks lunged from the water as it began to boil. Steam rose all around and within it, a faint green glow. The turbulence of the water lasted only a brief moment, and when it was clear again, the body of the demon had gone. The water itself, however, glittered with a beautiful green effervescence, as if a moon had risen and reflected now in the waters.

Tarnis bowed his head slightly, then glanced to his monks and pointed to the water. In a frenzy of action, they took a broad, deep, clay pot from one of the larger saddle bags and dipped it in the river, drawing in the green glow.

Tarnis turned to the prince, wringing his sleeves of the water from the river. It soaked him to the bone. The prince was gazing with a frown at his surroundings, completely dry.

He looked to the priest as if surprised to see him there. "What are we doing at the river, your grace?"

---

Twelve

29 March, 2000, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Haargan raised his head, his narrative drawing to a close. "We never found the demon's body," the monk explained. "And for reasons we didn't comprehend at the time, the prince, nor any of his knights, remembered anything of the battle. We spent days at camp trying to explain their glorious victory. It was especially difficult since there was no evidence whatsoever of the battle; all the prince's knights were alive and well, all the demon bodies were gone from the field, leaving not a trace."

Haargan stood and walked around the table to address Logan from a more personal standpoint. "It was not until years later that we, Tarnis' monks, discovered what had really happened that day."

Logan was shaking his head with a wry smile. "You expect me to believe that you were there? Nine hundred years ago?" He let out a short laugh. "You look good."

Haargan sat on the table's edge, sharing the conjurer's sardonic grin. "How old are you, my friend?" The question hung there in the air for a moment while the grin slowly melted from Logan's face.

"Forty seven," he answered, brushing his thick blonde hair from his temple.

"And you don't look a day over thirty five," Haargan responded. "Have you not found ways, in all of your magical exploits, to extend your vitality?"

Logan pondered this in seriousness. "The only beneficial thing magic has ever done for me," he said at last, then added with a small laugh, "and even this is hollow," he glanced down at his robes and imagined the youthful body beneath. "It was at thirty five that I watched my family butchered."

The monk took in a breath. "Now we of the Order have reason at last for our extended existence. And we are thankful for yours as well," he added. "The Beast that comes to us now will stop at nothing to find the Key and use it, destroying us all."

"Where would you hide it?" Logan asked, open to any plan the monk would offer. The Key, he knew, was his only hope of salvation. He would not risk its safety because of petty spite. Or even in the name of revenge.

Haargan walked away from the table, approaching a small recess in the wall. "This was the subject of our meeting this morning," the old monk replied, brining an object from the wall and placing it before the conjurer. "This— and your considerable power."

Logan looked at what lay on the table. It was clearly a forearm. The hand made a fist at one end and the other end showed where it had been surgically removed from the elbow. It was demon-like in appearance, but what was most puzzling was the fact that midway along the arm there was a change in the flesh texture; the flesh color. Indeed, the flesh itself changed from one kind of demon to another, the two kinds sutured together along the arm.

While this fact held Logan's attention, Haargan lifted the arm and indicated the knuckles of the fist. "You see this?"

Logan reached out and touched the substance on the dead flesh. "Dried blood," he observed. "Not the demon's I expect."

"No," Haargan let in a small smile. "Not at all."

The monk's expression made Logan frown. "What? Who's then? What does this have to do with the Key?"

---

Thirteen

17 September, 1981, Freeport, New York

"Daddy, come on daddy, we're going to be late." Hanna Kilpatrick bounced up and down on her toes in urgency. "Daddy, the bus is coming," she implored.

"Coming, coming, sweetie," Logan grabbed his coat and keys, slipping into his brown blazer as the big orange school bus rounded the corner onto their street. Hanna of course waited for Logan to open the door before she hurried out into their yard. She didn't think there was anything odd about daddy's rule that she never go outside without a grownup. Even though she was six– nearly seven. But daddy was adamant that the world was full of dangers and that she never go out alone.

The bus drove past the Kilpatrick's house and continued on to the next stop. "Oh no," Logan said in an exaggerated voice. "Wait! Wait!" His deep, funny-voice made Hanna giggle, even more when he scooped her up, running with her under his arm, crossing the small lawns in several long strides.

They reached the stopped bus as several other children were filing on. Logan put his daughter down and turned her to face him. "Now; what are you going to do today?" He asked, making her rehearse.

She made an exaggerated little sigh. "Learn lots of things, make lots of friends and have lots and lots-"

"-and lots and lots-" Logan interjected, making his little girl smile.

"-and lots of fun," she finished, wrapping her arms around his neck as he squatted before her. He released her and he stood, waiting for her to join the many small students of the waiting bus. She turned quickly, as if she nearly forgot. "Kiss?" She asked, her eyes wide.

Logan made a gentle smile. He kissed his two fingers and pressed them to her forehead as she closed her eyes. She turned and rushed up the steps of the school bus. There was a slight hiss as the bus closed its doors and started for the next stop on its route to the school.

Logan pulled his blazer into place and started back for the house, turning once to wave to Hanna who had taken a window seat in order to wave back. Logan was still smiling as he opened the front door again, closing it and locking it up tight. There were indeed dangers in the world.

---

3 April, 2000, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Logan held up the clay tablet. On it was the dried blood from the demon's forearm. "Take this blood," he chanted, the droning of the monks in the background holding his mind on that spinning plateau. "Create from it life like no other," he set the small tablet on the wooden table bowing his head and stepping back. "Cause its blood to pour forth." And at his words the small clay tablet began to bleed.

Whistler stood at the back of the bright room. Unlike the dark, torch-lit chambers in the bowels of the monastery, this room had many window, letting the sunlight pour in. The demon slowly removed his fedora, holding it at his side as he watched.

The wooden table was now covered in dark red blood, covering the table's surface, but not running off its edges.

Logan lifted his hands into the air, letting the sleeves of his robe fall to his elbows. "Bring this blood together, cause it to have path and purpose. Give it a heart."

The blood on the table slowly rose from the wooden surface, leaving no stain, constricting into veins and arteries, the sum of which was distinctly humanoid. Near one end of the table, a heart grew, still, unmoving, plump and full of blood.

"Cause bones to form, and muscles and sinews to appear," he chanted, raising his hands further into the air. His eyes were closed as the plane of his existence spun in his mind. He did not see the beige-white of the bones begin to emerge, the rib cage springing from the heart, the ribs meeting to form a spine. The spine ran up and down half the length of the table, a skull and shoulder blades sprouting at one end, hip bones, legs and feet from the other end. The shoulders soon grew arms, a radius and ulna forming inside cluster of blood vessels that was the arm, the arms soon growing hands and fingers.

"Give it form," Logan whispered, the light at the center of his spinning mind growing. "Give it form," he commanded, louder, letting the essence search his mind for the form to give it. He opened his mind up, letting the image there be seen and duplicated. "Give it flesh," Logan chanted, the drone of the monks increasing in pitch. Logan felt his heart beat faster as the life before him grew to completion. "Unite the flesh," he ordered, his eyes still closed, his mind still reeling, his hands still uplifted to the power he wielded. "Bring it together and breath life into it. Cause its heart to beat in its breast and search its mind for the strength and will to live of its own accord."

The single note issuing from the throats of the monks behind him rose to a crescendo. Logan's hands trembled as the most crucial moments of the power he commanded slipped past. His throat was tight, as were his eyes as the monks' voices filled his ears, the spinning in his head making him giddy. The light at his center, in his thoughts, was now intolerably bright. "_Make it awake_," it was less than a whisper as all his hopes and fears of the last week culminated in this very room, before him now.

Logan held his breath. His arms ached and trebled. The room seemed to vibrate with the chant of the monks. Whistler stood passively behind them, watching with sincere interest. Logan couldn't bring himself to inhale. The light in his mind was fading, the spinning slowing. The chant of the monks was lessening and for an instant the conjurer had a terrible feeling he had failed.

Then he heard a sound that was neither his own heart thumping nor the chanting of the chorus behind him. Somewhere in front of him, someone gasped for breath.

---

Fourteen

4 April, 2000, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Haargan walked down the dark corridor, the torch in hand. "Where we are going, you need return to only once," the monk advised. Logan walked behind him, carrying no torch. He wasn't sure he could remember how to get here even if he needed to.

At the end of the tunnel was a single, neglected looking door. Haargan placed his torch in the iron clasp on the wall and stood before the door. He waited almost a full minute. "Open," he said at last, and the wooden door groaned inwards with the sound of rusted iron on iron.

The two walked inside. It was very dark. Logan listened to the sound of the monk's footsteps until they stopped, he stopped nearby. Logan heard the monk rummaging in his robes as he drew a match and lit it. The room was now thrown into sharp relief. Logan could see they were standing in the center of the circular stone chamber. Before them was a small stone column which rose to waist level. On it was a clay pot, deep and broad, filled with water. Above the pot hung a lamp, which Haargan now lit.

Logan frowned, looking into the pot. The water was positioned in the shadow of the lamp itself and so was dark as a mirror. Logan's image was reflected back to him with perfect clarity. "This is the Key?" He asked, perhaps a trace of disappointment in his voice.

Haargan picked up on it and reached forward, touching his finger to the surface of the water. As the ripples crossed its surface, a glow began in the depths of the dark pot. Logan watched in awe as the stunning green glow swelled in the water. His breathing slowed as the green moved and pulsed in the pot, dashing back and forth as if it had a life of its own.

"This is the Key," Haargan replied, satisfied with the conjurer's reverence.

The pair left the chamber, the lamp still lit. "You will bring it here," the monk said to the man behind him. "The Key can never leave that room in its current form. We cannot risk it."

Logan just nodded, still recovering from the beauty he now realized he had been privileged to witness. "I will join the two... seamlessly," he assured. "In reality they will be one and indistinguishable."

Haargan nodded. "Excellent. Bring it to us when you have finished. We will give it memories and place it in hiding."

Logan stopped the monk with a hand to his shoulder. "I can do that," he frowned. "Why not let me do that?"

Haargan removed the conjurer's hand from his shoulder, a little gruffly. "You will not," he said severely. "You will have no knowledge of its whereabouts while the Beast is in search of it. The Order of Dagon has sworn to die for its protection. You have made no such oath. We call on you only because of your skill, not to grant you any special favors." Haargan turned and continued on down the hall. "Do not dwell on it, my friend," the monk advised, "regardless of our precautions, we may all be killed when the Beast arrives."

"Comforting," Logan squinted, stepping back into the light of the sunlit level.

"You have two more days to finish your work, then you must give it to us." With nothing more, the monk strode away to his chambers, leaving Logan with his thoughts and his memories.

---

The girl sat quietly in the rock garden, her simple sackcloth robe showing her bare arms and nothing else below her neck. She stared fixedly at the small tree at the center of the garden, next to the little artesian fountain, her hands folded on her lap.

Logan stood at the great stone archway that led from the lamasery to the terrace that was the garden. His arms were crossed and he gazed fixedly at her, a troubled crease on his brow.

Whistler moved up beside him, touching the brim of his hat. "She's a beauty, isn't she?" Logan said nothing as he continued to stare at her. Her light brown hair fell down her back, loose and slightly uneven. Whistler shared Logan's appreciative gaze for a moment, then put a hand on his shoulder. "I've got something you need to do."

"I don't owe you anything," Logan answered quietly. There was no animosity in his voice, just gentle truth.

"Never said you did," Whistler mirrored the tone, "like I said; _you need_ to do this. It ain't for me, it ain't even for the Schmucks That Be. It's for you."

Logan turned to face the demon. There was a kind of weary impatience there. This whole garden radiated tranquility, but in Loki there was only exhaustion and a deep, mind numbing ache. His words were clear and unspoken. You'll give him to me? The vague, time altered image of the blonde haired vampire entered his mind. You'd give him to me?

Whistler's eyes held the small amount of regret he felt. "You need to forget him," the demon said quietly. A higher volume of voice seemed inappropriate in this place. "And you need to know he's forgotten about you."

"He wouldn't have forgotten," Logan assured, tiredly. "I tried to make him forget the day he killed her... it was— it was the only thing I could do for her. But it was only temporary, he must remember by now."

Whistler said nothing for a moment, following Loki's gaze back into the garden. The girl had moved over to the fountain and now sat near its edge, drawing her hand back and forth through the cold water of the pond at its base. She faced them but never looked up, peering curiously down at the many small fish which darted between her fingertips.

"He's living it over and over," Loki muttered, "remembering his glory days as a Slayer slayer." The man swallowed. "It kills me to know that. That he's proud of it. That it gets him off."

Whistler seized him by the elbow. "Then take that away from him. I've seen it– your _blink_." Logan turned and frowned at him. Whistler squeezed his elbow. "You can take his pride away. _Make him forget_."

Logan let out a small sigh. "It's not enough." There was a pause and they both turned back to the girl by the fountain.

"Even the biggest waterfall," Whistler said quietly, "starts with a single drop."

Logan let this enter his mind; let it cross the plane of consciousness that was turning so slowly it was imperceptible. "Okay," he said tiredly. "Okay, I'll do it."

Whistler gave a small curt nod. He then looked down at the conjurer's robes. "Not in _that_ you won't."

---

Fifteen

5 April, 2000, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

She stood near the center of the circular stone room. The single lamp burned with a tall orange flame over the clay pot of ancient water. She looked down at her toes. She wiggled them and gave a small grin.

Logan took a deep breath. This was not going to be pretty. The Key, he had come to learn, like any symbiotic, non-corporeal entity, fit into a certain niche in its host. It couldn't fit into just anyone. There had to be a vacancy, so to speak. Normally, when released from its watery prison, the entity would wander formlessly until it found a suitable space in a suitable host. This was the very purpose of the girl who now stood near the clay vessel, wiggling her toes with a grin. But there were _two_ niches in this particular room; two new vessels that the Key might find.

Logan let out his deep breath and drew the small knife from its scabbard. In this most unusual of circumstances, a conduit was required, to see that the Key found its way to a specific host. Logan looked down at the blade. It was not ceremonial. It was a knife borrowed from the hunting kit of one of the visiting priests. There was nothing ceremonial about this bloodletting. A single drop might coax the Key from its millennium of slumber, but no less than a full cup would draw it into its new resting place.

Logan looked to the girl before him. He wished, for all the reasons that were swimming around in his mind, that it could be his skin that the blade parted. That he could become the host. For a brief instant he considered it. With mastery– no, he chided himself, mastery would take years. The monks would realize and remove it before then. Only with their consent could he use what they guarded. What he now prepared to smuggle.

Without allowing himself the luxury of a second thought, Logan closed the distance between himself and his creation, seizing her arm and holding it over the pot. She gave him a perplexed look, one which quickly turned to shock as he drew the knife blade across her wrist in one hard, swift movement. She opened her mouth in pain but no sound came out. The only sound was the tiny _drip, drip, drip_ as her blood began to stain the shadowed water red.

She looked to him with a pleading, pained expression that made his heart ache. He wondered if his daughter had worn this expression as she... He shook the thought away and loosened his grip on her wrist: the blood needed to flow.

The entity in the water began to glow, swimming and dashing inside the urn. The conjurer turned back to his creation. He looked upon her now in pure envy.

---

12 August, 1989, New York City

His chest ached. He hadn't cried this much in a full year. His life had now completed its run of self destruction: Niki was dead. He had managed to pull her off the subway and get her to an ambulance, but of course, not in time. He recalled the impassive voice of the doctor who had met her in the hospital. _D.O.A._ he had said, never lifting his eyes from his clipboard, dead on arrival.

The next few days had been a blur. There was nothing left. Nothing for him, nothing for anyone else. The world was thin, now, without her. Without them. The weight of the death of his entire world had hit him, that very same day. He ended up staying in the hospital, pumped full of relaxants and antidepressants. But soon he was no longer their problem any more. He was his own problem. There was nothing left.

So he had come to this small creek in Central Park, the only place in New York City where he could cry alone. He sat by the edge of the small pond and pretended to watch the ducks, but in reality, his eyes were shut tighter than even the sun could penetrate.

Then the demon had come again. Logan never forgot how completely arrogant the thing had been. Jet black leathery skin with a leather trench coat sweeping along behind him, two long horns jutting up behind him, and he walked as if he had lived in this city for ten years, as if no one would notice him in the bright August sunshine.

With his eyes now wide, Logan Kilpatrick watched as the demon sat beside him on the bench. For long moments, the two simply sat there, the most unusual pair ever seen in the Park; the demon in his long black coat, the man in his brown blazer, both of them examining the other with curiosity and not a trace of fear.

Logan's first instinct had been to kill this strange creature. He recalled having seen something like it once and couldn't immediately name it, but it was a demon and that was usually enough. But today was not an ordinary day. Today, this demon was the closest thing Logan had to a friend. Today, this demon was Logan's best friend and complete nuclear family all rolled into one. The man committed every detail of his friend to memory; his breathing, his smell, his notable horns, everything. After a moment of staring at each other for a moment, they simultaneously turned away, looking now to the duck pond and the ducks which paddled around it. It was the most bizarrely comforting moment of his life.

And then it ended. With a sudden wave of sickness, Logan realized something. There was no sudden indication; the demon gave nothing away, but somehow, the only logical reason for this demon to come to this park and sit beside this man was clear. This was the Werlech demon.

Logan turned back, twisting his body rapidly to gain force for his blow. His hand found the creature's throat, but did little damage as the thing now turned to him, its face hiding any trace of emotion. It was the least human thing Logan had ever tried to kill.

The demon's hand soon found the human's chest, its long fingers spreading over the man's rapidly pounding heart. It opened its mouth and took in a deep breath, its face near to Logan's own.

That was when it happened. It is impossible to describe to someone who has not experienced it what it feels like to lose one's soul. It has no comparison. Only a gaping emptiness now remained inside Logan as he fell from the park bench to the grass beneath; an emptiness that was never meant to be. The whole structure of his self was beginning to crumble, as if this thing which had been inhaled by the demon had been the corner stone of his entire being. The pen on the page of his existence was rapidly unwriting his story, taking away his destiny and leaving only a blank page. He was now a specter. No prophecy would include him; no good or evil would come of his hands.

He gasped for breath on the soft grass as the demon stood over him. Logan's eyes were wide and he feared he would hyperventilate if he could not calm himself. The terrible feeling, however, would not go away.

Then the shadow of the demon was gone and the sun peeked through the tree branches, winking and flashing across his face as the suffocating went on, amid the distant sounds of ducks and squirrels and summer leaves. He had thought there had been nothing left to lose. His thoughts abandoned him now.

---

Sixteen

16 April, 2000, Chamdo, Tibet

Logan turned around, looking down at himself as Whistler admired his work. "Good God, you're kidding me," was all Loki said as the white silk ruffled in the breeze off the Mekong.

"You look sharp, kid," Whistler said appreciatively. "Don't know about those pants, but I could only arrange to get the shirt made before your flight," he added, looking at the khakis Logan still wore, which had originally gone with his blazer. Now his blazer was gone but his pants weren't, thankfully.

"I would look more inconspicuous dressed as a monk." The two stood near the silk shop, a stone's throw from the muddy Mekong. It was still quite cold, though not so cold as it had been four months ago when the two had been here last.

"When was the last time you were in the good ol' U.S. of A?" Whistler raised an eyebrow. "American fashion ain't what it used to be."

Loki looked down as his wrist watch began to beep madly. "Ah, that would be my cue," he said, deciding the shirt would have to do. "My flight leaves in an hour," he elaborated. "Chamdo to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to New York."

"You've got the new look," Whistler acknowledged, "but are you ready to confront this?"

Loki made a small laugh. "You're mister All-Seeing-Eyes of destiny, why don't you tell me?"

"I'd been pretty much focused on making you look good, didn't think to check." He drew his hands smartly down his jacket then tucked his hands back into his pockets. "You better hurry; you'll miss your flight."

Loki chuckled and turned for the airport. He had everything he needed; he had better be ready. Besides, he thought resentfully, there was nothing left for him here.

---

5 April, 2000, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Logan pressed the gauze to the girl's wrist. Soon the bleeding lessened. The water was dark and empty now, the clay pot holding nothing of value for the first time in nine centuries. The water that remained there was still dark in the shadow of the lamp, and still red with her blood, but the life was gone from it.

His hand circled her wrist quickly, wrapping the bandage snugly over the gauze. She still made no sound. Always she tugged at his heart. Always she looked like his Hanna, moved like his Hanna, cringed like poor Hanna. She winced as he adjusted the gauze under the bandage, allowing her at last to cradle the wound to her chest with her other hand. She was more than Hanna now, he thought. More than the image of a person, more than the shadow of a life: She was the Key now.

He looked up quickly as the great door opened with its groan of neglect. Haargan entered, followed by three monks in brown. The trio behind the master soon circled the still inwardly-cringing girl, pushing Logan rudely out of the way.

Loki's eyes flashed and his grip tightened on the knife he still held when Haargan's gentle hand came down on the conjurer's shoulder. He gently pulled the angry man away from the triangle of now chanting monks. Logan recognized the chant. Not the words, but the tone and verse and focus of those involved were familiar to his ears. It was a displacement ritual. They were preparing to move her somewhere. Somewhere far, far away.

"Where are you taking her?" Loki hissed to the master, referring to the Key for the first time as its new form. "Tell me, my _friend_," he said bitterly. "You owe me that."

"It is true," Haargan nodded slowly, his eyes trained on the three chanting before them. "We owe you a great debt of gratitude. The world does as well. None here possessed the skill of the craft needed to fashion such a..." he shook his head as he eyed the girl, "such a _realistic_ vessel." He removed his hand from Loki's shoulder and folded it with the other at his waist. "And if she is discovered it means ruin for us all, you included."

Loki eyed the old monk suspiciously. "According to you, the Key was possessed originally by a demon. It didn't manage to do a great deal of damage then."

"The Beast, as you are well aware, is no ordinary demon. It is godlike. It seeks not to master the... _surgically_ precise potential of the Key, but instead to unleash it, utterly and with no thought to the consequences."

"What are the consequences?" Loki asked, taking his eyes momentarily from the chanting three.

Haargan slowly turned his head to face the conjurer, his face stoic but his voice heavy. "Hell on Earth."

Logan's head whipped back to the trio as a bright pulse of light emerged from the floor and engulfed the terrified girl. The chanting abruptly ceased. "What happened? Where is she?" Loki looked quickly from the triangle to the master and back.

"She is in the ether," Haargan said calmly. "She will be called back when the monks in Czech perform the parallel ritual. There she will be given a name, an identity and a memory, ready to enter the world as if she always was."

"And the world she enters?" Loki raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Won't it notice she's the new girl on the block?"

"No," Haargan replied simply. "We have prepared her world in a similar fashion, adding her presence to history from afar, allowing her to create her own effects on the world, creating her own memories in others. Soon the two worlds shall meet, seamlessly and no one will notice the transition."

"If you can alter history," Logan hissed as the monks slipped past them out of the room, "why not just prevent the Beast from coming here in the first place?"

"You are young," Haargan said with a hint of patronization, "so I will forgive your ignorance. The Order of Dagon has spent a thousand years protecting the Key. It has been threatened countless times by forces which seek to use it and those who seek to destroy it. Even the descendants of Alexius' knights are in pursuit of it, convinced it is treacherous and must be destroyed." Logan tensed at the thought of his precious Key in peril. "We have learned through hard trials and often deadly errors that meddling overmuch in the history of things can work against us as often as it can work for us."

"I don't understand," Logan grumbled, following the aged master to the lamp where it was blown out with aged breath.

"You are familiar with the concept of paradox?" The monk asked, closing the old door behind them as they exited the room never again to be entered.

"Of course," he said irritated, "but I'm sure if you were careful-"

"Our actions are a millennia's learned care and discreetness," Haargan interrupted. "Were we to simply kill the form of the Beast before it became a threat to us, as you suggest," he lectured, "then by the time history had reached the present, we would have had no need to ever perform such a ritual, thus reversing our efforts."

Logan sighed dejectedly. He had to admit, the monk had a point.

"Believe me, my friend," Haargan went on, "this is the most effective defense possible."

"Where are we going?" Logan asked after a moment as they walked down another set of adjoining corridors long forbidden to him.

"I told you that we owe you a great debt of gratitude," Haargan said confidently, "perhaps you cannot have that which you so covet, but there are many powers in this world. And after a thousand years of searching for them..." He clicked the handle to the much used door and opened it noiselessly.

Logan's eyes grew wide in wonder. The room was laid out with display tables and shelves, each filled with all manner of relics. Some were glowing, others were glistening, and still others were dusty and leather bound.

"Skulls of saints," Haargan said with pride, "the Lost Arc of the Covenant, the Talisman of Yassim, the Scepter of Solomon, the staffs of the Shadow Men, the Orb of the Durgaii..." He trailed off as Logan moved reverently into the room, his eyes at first moving over the room at random but finally coming to rest upon the display case directly ahead. "And the Five Spheres of Dagon," Haargan concluded, a small smile at the corner of his mouth. Logan certainly had an eye for things of importance.

"What are they?" Loki extended a hand and drew his finger tips slowly down the glass of the case; his eyes alight with the glow from behind. "Not usual orbs. I don't remember them from any ancient text." His voice was quiet and respectful.

"They appear in very few texts; only those I have written myself," the master explained. "They were each created separately, by the monks of this order, for different purposes."

The Spheres were each a different size, arranged on the black velvet from least to greatest. The largest was the size of a basketball and was completely black, giving no reflection from its surface. "This," Haargan indicated the greatest of the five, "was created first. It was used to vanquish a legion of vampires by night. When left in the sun for six days, it acquires at first a glow and then a brilliance equal to the sun."

Loki raised a quizzical eyebrow. "You mean like a solar powered flashlight?"

Haargan frowned, a little offended. "It was a marvel eight hundred years ago." The next smallest sphere, about two thirds the diameter of the first, was smoky red and glassy on its surface. "This is the source of the Order's ability to alter history," the monk continued. "All events through time and space are fed through here, moving from the future to the present to the past. It is the physical manifestation of the instant that we exist in time. It _is_ now."

Loki frowned, squinting into his reflection in the sphere. He saw nothing. Whether it was because the sphere required some special ritual to activate it, or because he was a specter, Loki didn't care to know.

"The next sphere," Haargan said, lifting the glass case in order to examine the object in question more closely, "is of vital importance. Now more than ever. It must follow the Key at any cost." He gently removed the glowing yellow sphere from its place at the center of the lineup, holding it easily in one hand. It was about the size of a grapefruit, Logan thought. "This sphere," Haargan continued, "was created to repel the Beast." He hefted it and turned it over, inspecting its flawless surface. "It is powerful, but it is not infallible. Nothing is against such power as the Abomination."

"You call it the Beast, the Abomination," Logan pondered, gazing at the yellow glow, "what is its name? Or do you not know it?"

"Its name is sacrilegious to utter; is spoken with nothing but terror by those who witness its passing; is the last death knell of too many good men and has no place in this house of God." Haargan placed the Dagon sphere back into the indent in the velvet, as if to finalize all discussion on the matter.

"The next sphere," Haargan indicated the silver one the size of a tennis ball, "is the reason myself and the monks of Dagon must never fear the ravages of age. It was created second, when several of our wisest and most dedicated brothers fell to the decay of time, including Tarnis himself." Haargan lowered his head for a short moment, unwillingly recalling the many that had died in the service of the order, some peacefully... some not.

"What's this little guy here?" Loki plucked the glass ball from the velvet, rolling it around in his palm. It was no bigger than a golf ball.

"Little more than a trinket, I'm afraid," Haargan responded, unconcerned with the cavalier way Loki was tossing the small object between his hands. "It is a meditative centerpiece, used for decades to aid in the achievement of higher states of consciousness." The master sighed. "At least, that was the intention. It has been used in the past, sadly, as little more than a paperweight."

Loki looked down at the little thing between his thumb and index finger. "Aw, you just need a little magical tune-up, don't you, little guy?"

Haargan straightened. "For your help in our time of need, the Order offers you any one thing from this room, brother Logan, excepting of course this-" He took the yellow Dagon Sphere and slid it into the inner folds of his robe. "Choose wisely."

Loki was tossing the small crystal sphere into the air and catching it, as if it were a baseball. "I think I've picked my favorite," he said with a happy smile. "I feel meditatively centered already."

Haargan raised an exasperated eyebrow and sighed. "Very well," he said at last. The two left; the thousand year old monk, with his hands in his robe, walking as solemnly as when he had entered; the comparative child walking with a little skip in his step, tossing and catching the littlest Dagon sphere.

---

Seventeen

19 April, 2000, New York City

Logan sat on the small rug in the center of his hotel room. Spike was not here. He rolled his head from side to side in the darkness, trying to envision the wheeling plane. Trying and failing. America was busier than when he had left. It was nighttime; a time when in the lamasery all lights would be out and only sparse candles would be lit, letting peace fill the entire temple.

Here there were always lights. The darker it got, the busier and brighter it got. Cars, horns, rock music, cell phones, arguments... Spike was not here. Logan identified the real source of his troubled mind. Spike had been released from the Initiative, this he knew, but where had he gone from there? Not New York, his old hunting grounds, Loki could find him nowhere. No one knew where he was. The sunyata filled Logan's mind completely.

Logan stood and paced his room, cursing himself for his inability to focus. Spike should not even be his goal. The safekeeping of the Key should be his goal. The two were separate and distinct. Vengeance and redemption. Hatred and desire. He pressed his hands to his temples, growling in frustration. Then he stopped mid stride.

He walked quickly to his duffle bag on the bed and slipped his hand inside the inner pocket, his racing heart slowing as his fingers closed around it. He drew it from the pocket with a satisfied sigh. There you are.

He sat back comfortably on the rug, the small crystal sphere pressed snugly between his palms. With almost no effort at all, the noise, the business slipped away into the sunyata. There it was; the slowly wheeling plane. I am serene, he thought, I am placid, he believed. The light flickered into existence at the center of the plane as it began to turn faster. "I know where he is–" and the light snapped out as his eyes shot open in the darkness.

---

26 April, 2000, Sunnydale

Everything was quiet. There was just the cool night air and the scent of his next victim. Well, thought the vampire, victim was a relative thing. He was little more than a petty thief now. Still, a bloke had to make a living, didn't he?

Spike leapt from the alley in front of the strange man, his game face on. He made a convincing snarl then stepped forward. "Right, let's have your money," he hissed.

Loki's hand went up in an instant, palm outward. Spike looked down at his immovable legs. "What the... _bloody hell_," he twisted and thrashed in the bonds he couldn't see, then looked up, his face human again. He sighed, crossing his arms. "Right, fine, keep your damn money." He took on a tone of nonchalance. "Didn't want it anyway."

"_Spike_," the word was serpentine and poisonous coming out of Loki's mouth. His glare of hatred soon melted into one of slight puzzlement. "_You're_ William the Bloody?"

Spike cocked his head. "S'right. Have I had the pleasure of robbing you before?"

A pair of pedestrians wandered past, giving the two an odd look, then snickering discreetly once their backs were turned. Loki took a step closer, tugging absently on his silk collar. "Yes, you have robbed me of something," he said bitterly, his fists clenched at his sides now. "Ten years ago, you took the last thing I loved."

"Yeah, well, I'm a vampire," Spike defended, "I do a lot of that love-taking bit, it's what I do best— I'm good at it. I could do it right now," he bluffed, "I just don't want to."

"So you really _don't_ recognize me, do you?" Loki marveled. He gave a small laugh. "I spent a decade— more than that even, thinking it was all you thought about. Thinking that killing Niki was the high point of your existence." He looked into Spike's eyes with distaste. "But your existence has no high point, does it?"

"Look, mate, I don't have the slightest idea who you are or what you want with me. And while I have no doubt I killed someone you cared about—"

"New York City," Loki hissed, bringing his hand down in a sweeping motion. Spike was thrown to the ground. "Subway car, nineteen eighty nine," Loki continued, kicking the vampire in the head as he tried to hold the specter's ankle. "You killed a slayer by the name of Niki." He delivered another vicious kick to the blonde crowned head. Spike groaned, then was drawn back up to his feet again as Loki slashed his hand up through the air.

Spike rubbed his head, still unable to move his legs. "Nikki?" He muttered, tasting his own blood. "Subway car— right, I remember," he kept his gaze down, away from this psychopathic magician. He frowned. "But that was... that was _twenty_ odd years ago." He squinted and finally looked up, brushing down his duster. "Seventy seven, it was." He looked down, "this was her jacket—"

"_Wrong!_" Loki shouted, throwing Spike to the ground again. His foot connected with the vamp's stomach twice. "_Some sort of freaky deja vu?_ you said," the man continued, snapping his heel across the vamp's chin. Spike momentarily vamped out, but another kick drove his face back to its human form. "I could see why you'd get them confused," _kick_ "plus the nasty spell I hit you with," _kick_ "would be enough to make anyone forget they stole perfection from the world!"

Spike grunted in pain as the toe connected with his jaw. Then the kicks stopped. The vampire felt his legs go numb for an instant then the feeling returned– and the control. He stood, slowly.

Loki was breathing hard. The exertion– the anger of the magic he wielded had been more powerful than he had imagined. Only one thing had kept him from killing this... _filth_ right here on the sidewalk. He took a deep breath and took it from his pocket; the small glass ball that fit so easily into his palm; that calmed him, centered him whenever he touched it. As the vampire straightened, unsure of what was to come, Loki gave a small smile. Destiny hadn't blinked, he knew. Destiny would never blink.

He closed his hand gently around the sphere, feeling his anger melt involuntarily away. "But there are things in this world protecting you," he said easily at last. "And I can see that now is not the time, and I'm okay with that," he added, "because I know that when you eventually die; when your miserable little unlife comes to its bitter, dusty end, I may not be there, but I _will_ be laughing." He slipped the sphere back into his pocket, fully realizing now the futility of this vengeance. He might as well do as Whistler suggested and be done with it.

"Maybe you will," Spike brushed himself off again, then in a flash took on his vampire face, "maybe you won't–" and he lunged at the foe he assumed was a demon. The chip told him otherwise. With a shout of pain he fell to the ground on top of Loki who began to laugh quite ironically at the sight of Spike writhing in self inflicted pain. As Spike slowly got up, Loki fell back onto the ground, his sides aching with laughter.

"So _this_—" the specter gasped between laughs, "this is why I took a vacation?" He broke off to laugh uncontrollably for several seconds to the chagrin of the recovering vampire. "I stayed away from you–" he wheezed, "because you _can't_ hurt me?" He rubbed tears from his eyes and with several deep breaths managed to calm himself. At last he stood, chuckling the last of the irony away. Destiny– _Whistler _was craftier than he'd thought. He sighed at last and shook his head. "Get lost, Spike," he said amicably, with a slight trace of pity. "Go rob somebody else. I'll kill you later."

"Who _are_ you?" The vampire demanded, scowling.

Loki lost none of his amusement. "I'm the face you never saw," he replied, waving his hand over the vampire's bruised face, removing all trace of injury and memory. Logan Kilpatrick and Niki Valtaine disappeared into the sunyata of Spike's mind, leaving him staggering against the wall of the alley on the cool dark night.

After a moment he straightened. A familiar scent lingered in his nostrils. He vamped and jumped out. Anya screamed.


	3. Chapter 3

Part III – The Beast

Eighteen

1 August, 2000, Kalamariá, Greece

The lute played lazily a few blocks away. Whistler's drink sweated in the sunlight. Logan was sitting comfortably under the awning of the little café, looking intently at his cards. His own drink was long empty.

"Gin," said the demon, laying his hand down on the table, between the plates and crumpled serviettes.

Logan eyed the winning hand with scrutiny, finally throwing his own cards down with a sigh. "What could possibly possess me to play cards with someone who can see what's destined to be?"

"You're inspired by our lively conversations?" Whistler suggested, taking a sip of his drink. "Besides, anybody could read you like the headlines on election day." He raised a finger and wagged it cautioning. "You got to work on that."

Logan paused for a small moment then warily began shuffling the cards again. "Whistler," he began, his face troubled, "why are you here?"

Whistler cocked his head. "Why – do you want me to go?"

Logan brushed it off. "No, no, that's not what I meant. I mean, why are _we_ here?"

Whistler frowned a little then took a deep breath. "_Well_... In the beginning, there was nothing—"

"No, no, no," Logan dismissed this as well, giving a small laugh. "I mean, why are we _here,_" he paused, "_now_? What's going to happen?"

Whistler blinked. "Well, you were going scuba diving with– what's her name? Stephanie? And I was just passing through—"

"That's it," Logan aimed a finger at the demon across the table, "_why_ were you 'passing through?' I didn't think anything of it this morning, but I haven't seen you in a few months and you never show up without a reason."

"_I_ enjoy our thrilling conversations," Whistler suggested. He absently took another sip of his drink, trying to draw the topic from his sudden arrival. "They have hepatitis shots here?"

"But–" Logan was interrupted by the waiter who approached with a small platter. On it was stationary from the hotel he was staying at. There were two words scribbled on it in the handwriting of the clerk who had taken the call at the front desk.

τo κτήvoς

Logan's eyes narrowed as the meaning of the words sunk in. _The Beast._ He thanked the waiter and stood, letting the deck of cards fall to the table. Whistler took a sip of his colourful drink.

---

3 August, 2000, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Haargan stiffened. "I want it," the woman said simply. "You've got it and I want it and I've got to have it." The monk made no move, fixing his eyes stoically on the far wall of the lamasery. She stomped her foot in annoyance. "Give it to me," she ordered, somewhat like a child. "Give it to me right this very instant!"

He steeled himself for whatever torture she had in mind. All around him monks and prelates lay dead and dying. Some crawled about the floor uttering nonsense and whimpering incoherently. Among those who had not the resolve to flee, Haargan was the only one left standing.

"Tell me where it _is_!" She begged, stomping her foot again. The foundations trembled. Dust trickled from the ceiling. The ancient clay pot had been smashed, its fragments laying in pieces on the floor, the once sacred water now a puddle on the floor of this circular stone room. The flame of the lamp was burning high. They had come here as a last refuge from the siege of the Beast when it had discovered the lamasery. It would not be long before it went abroad. The sphere had already been sent away to the Czech Republic, sent where it was most needed. Now there was nothing standing between the aged master and the hellgod.

Glorificus turned, exasperated and allowed her minions to approach. Haargan made no sound as their small blades stuck into him. His jaw clenched as he was pierced over and over, his sides, his arms and his face.

"Enough," the Beast raised a hand. "Tell me now," she said with no humor or patience left. "Tell me now or you'll end up like these," she indicated the crawling monks, scratching the floor with their fingernails as if they were digging it up.

Haargan raised his chin defiantly. "I spit upon your countenance."

Glory whirled, seizing his throat and shoulder. With a vicious twist she tore his head from his body, letting the blood pour over her hands. His eyes looked down at her with a shocked expression, frozen now in death. His body fell to the puddle on the floor while she held his head curiously in the lamplight.

"Alas, poor holy-man," she said, waiting for the complimentary laughter from her minions. When none came she sighed and placed the head on the stone pedestal. "Come on, puss-bags," she ordered, stepping over the decapitated body, "we've got monks to find and I need a manicure."

---

Nineteen

12 August, 2000, 8 miles South of Kladno, Czech

"It's coming! It's coming to kill us!" Oris shouted.

Oris and Ryalk dashed down the candle lit corridor. They had attempted to salvage what relics they could from this monastery. Too many centuries of hiding and it had come to this. Ryalk looked behind him as the Beast stalked them. He dropped a censer of incense. Bending to pick it up, Oris took his arm and pulled him forward into the sanctum. Brother Vlad was already there, preparing the ritual.

Tomáš, thank God, had already left for America. As fate would have it, he had taken the sphere with him, having assumed the creature would be hot on his tail. Some sort of fortune had delayed his capture by a few days more, at the expense of themselves, thought Oris as he knelt in the triangle with Vladislav and Ryalk.

"Concentrate," Vlad urged as the three took up the chant. All was now prepared. All would be well. Oris winced, his voice wavering as the Abomination pounded on the door. At least, all would be well with the Key. As for themselves…

A bright light pulsed up from the floor as the entity was expelled from the ether, sending it to its final destination. World and child were about to meet for the first time, and neither would be the wiser.

The door exploded inward, scattering dust and debris everywhere. The Beast had come.

---

12 August, 2000, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Loki held the cloth across his mouth and nose. The stench was absolutely putrid. Even with the cloth, dipped generously in incense, it was all he could do not to gag. His eyes were watering, only partially from the air, as he stepped over the bodies. Some were a week old and rotting on the cobbles, gnawed consistently by rats. Others were fresh, having starved to death over the past week in their delirium, unable to feed themselves.

There was one particular corpse Loki was searching for. As he looked, sometimes only for an instant at those who were quite obviously not Haargan, and sometimes for several long moments when the identity was unclear, Loki was assaulted by the familiar feeling. Survivor guilt was a close friend of his. It had followed him everywhere he had gone, greeting his friends and introducing them to his other companion, death.

If it hadn't been for Whistler —for the demon's suggestion that he close the book on his past— he would have been here when the Beast had passed through. A small part of him was resentful; confident that he could have stopped whatever it was; hellgod or not. The rest of him was in silent shame. Shame for having fought so desperately against the Powers That Be which had again saved his life. Saved it for something.

Loki swallowed as he entered the chamber of the Key. Upon the pedestal, out of reach of the tiny jaws of the rats, Haargan looked up at him, his eyes sunken and dried. He blinked.

Loki jumped. Of course it was an illusion. The flickering of the torchlight cast a moving shadow across the poor man's face. Loki shook his head to clear himself of the delusions. But that was it. Haargan was dead. The monastery was abandoned.

Loki quickly turned, slamming the door closed behind him. He hurried down the corridor, up the stairs, moving from passageway to passageway, looking for the room. He shouldered the door and it gave easily. Someone had been in here, trying to protect the relics. Foolish effort.

Loki walked slowly into the center of the room as he had months ago, less reverently now than greedily, hungrily, his attention fixed completely on the shattered glass case and the objects beneath it. He drove his hand blindly through the broken surface, ignoring the hot lance of pain as he lacerated the back of his right hand. The warmth of his own blood was a surreal reminder that he was actually here. Actually now. He held now in his bloodied hand the smoky red sphere of the Order of Dagon, lifting it easily off the black velvet.

As his blood rolled down his pinkie finger and ran across the glassy surface of the angry red ball, the conjurer gazed into it for the second time. His blood dripped onto the glass, onto the velvet.

Logan Kilpatrick looked back at himself from inside the surface of the convergence of future and past. He was mesmerized by the rolling, boiling red clouds behind his own reflection, swirling and churning about some central point. The monks had no idea what kind of power they had had at their disposal. Paradox be damned, Loki thought, it was time for some serious damage control.

---

Twenty

26 October, 2000, Los Angeles

Logan knelt by his great grandmother's crypt. Stark and silent... read the inscription. He felt nothing as he looked at the decayed shroud that covered the corpse in the wall. He had never known her. His grandmother had been the youngest of nine children and his mother had been the youngest of six. All of them dead now, of course. But his great grandmother had died thirty years before he was even born. Before his carelessness could kill her.

He rose from his knees and reached into the recess in the stone wall. With subdued breathing he placed it at the back of the opening; the only thing that kept him sane, now. He would no longer need it. Where he was going was anywhere but a place for those still sane.

For two months he had tested, he had learned, he had toyed. Now he was ready. All the preparations were in order. All he needed was a place. And an opportunity. Presently he would have one then the next would follow in time.

In his studies of the Dagon Sphere he had come to call the Now, he had discovered with some surprise and delight his ability, he presumed above and beyond the ability of its previous owners, to create hypothetical universes; what-ifs which played out before his eyes, behind the glass of the sphere, the result of any alterations he fed into the time-line. It was an excellent learning tool. He found, for example, that by simply touching someone on the shoulder at exactly the right time, he could distract their attention and allow them to be run over by a truck. And while this altered the universe ever so slightly in the grand scheme, it served to show harmless comparison between what if and what was.

This hypothetical universe feature also prevented such nasty things as paradoxes, which Logan soon realized were a great deal more dangerous and likely than he had at first assumed. Now his thoughts were in order. His plan was set and his vendetta on course. He created destiny now. Blink or no blink, the Powers That Be couldn't touch him now. He could go back and erase them if he was daring enough. He shook his head. No, he amended, we tried that in a 'what if,' remember? He shuddered. The universe without Those That Be was not a pretty sight, even contained inside a glass sphere.

Logan now stood. First things first. He climbed the stairs to the entrance of the vault. Outside waited the man he had contacted earlier. He knew the man, but the man likely didn't know him.

"Evening," Loki greeting rather icily, wiping his dusty palms on his khakis, enjoying the feel of the cool night air through the silk of his shirt.

"It better be," the man glanced at the horizon, "my doctor says sunlight's not good for my health." The tall dark haired stranger looked Loki up and down. "You're Loki? Loki the demon-killer? Loki the soul-finder?"

Loki looked the tall man up and down. "I heard you help the helpless now. Much better direction than slowly ridding the world of rats."

Angel frowned, crossing his arms. "Look, we can trade insults some other time. What do you want?"

"I think we should work together," came Logan's simple reply.

Angel raised a surprised and immediately skeptical eyebrow. "What? Why? You and I?"

Logan cracked a small smile. "That's pretty much the reaction I expected," he said amicably. "You don't trust me because you don't know me. I don't trust you because you're a vampire. You distrust me more on account of I kill vampires, and you're a vampire. I trust you less because you know I kill vampires, and you're a vampire. And, naturally, you know this-"

"-Yeah, I get it," interjected the vampire. "We don't trust each other. What's your point?"

Loki's smile widened. "My point is," he began, "there's no way two distrusting people can get along and get any work done. But since I feel I just might be able to help you in ways you've never even conceived of before, I suggest an initial deal."

Angel was shaking his head. "What kind of deal?"

"You know... I sharpen your fangs, you sharpen mine. Nothing big or important. Just to establish trust."

"What do you want from me?" Angel asked suspiciously, instantly realizing this was just a ploy to get information.

"I'm looking for some things," Loki said without missing a beat or reacting to the vampire's altered tone. "Two things."

"What things?" Angel prompted, crossing his arms. "I don't have any mystical—"

"Names. That's all," Loki answered softly, raising his hands in peace. "Just names. Two of them." Angel was frowning deeply now, exhibiting a deep broodiness that seemed to fit him like a glove. "I need the name for a face and the name of a place."

"What makes you think I know these names?" The vamp asked, raising his eyebrow further.

"You'll know," the man nodded, convinced. "I need the name for this face," he drew from his pocket the small picture of Hanna Kilpatrick, taken when she was thirteen years old for her school photo.

Angel took the picture, irritated at first, expecting it to be no one he recognized, convinced now that this stranger had mistaken him for someone else. As he looked at the beaming face, however, his eyes narrowed and his suspicion increased tenfold. _What do you want with Dawn Summers?_ he had been about to blurt out, but realized of course this was exactly what this Loki person was counting on. "Never seen her before in my life," he answered. He didn't realize how true that was.

Loki nodded. "I know that. I just need you to name her." At that instant, as the vampire's eyes returned to the photo, betraying him completely, Logan reached out into his thoughts and pulled the name from his mind. Dawn Summers. He was silently gagging. They named you Dawn Summers?

"I'd name her Elizabeth, but she's not my kid," Angel answered dryly. "Really, I have no idea who she is."

Loki shrugged. "Oh well, but I know you know the next one," he took the photo and slipped it back into his pocket. "No picture. I need the name of the place where Spike hangs out."

"Sunnydale," Angel said without blinking. "And if you're going there to kill him, tell him I said hi."

Loki's smile reached his eyes. "I'll do just that," and he turned to leave.

"Your fangs are plenty sharp," Angel commented, loud enough for Loki to hear as he walked away, "but what about mine? What did I get out of this?"

"Watch out behind you," Loki said over his shoulder as he disappeared behind a broad tree.

Angel turned around and caught the vamp by the neck, driving a stake through his heart. He turned back but Loki was gone. Brushing the dust from his jacket he shook his head. "Thanks," he muttered.

---

What If: 23 May, 2001, Sunnydale

Spike fell from Glory's tower, letting out a brief shout of anger and frustration. He hadn't been able to help little bit. Goddamn Doc, he thought as the wind rushed through his ears. He prepared himself in the brief moment he had for the terrible pain of hitting the ground. The fall, he knew, probably wouldn't kill him. But it would hurt like a mother f—

Spike's body landed with a puff of ash on top of the upward pointing wooden splinters of a broken crate, at the bottom of the tower.

"Spike!" Willow started to charge forward from her cover but stopped, realizing that of course nothing could be done. Before any of the minions spotted her, she dashed back to Tara who lay out of sight.

From her high vantage point at the top of the sacrificial tower, Dawn witnessed the death of her would-be savior. Her partner in crime. Her secret crush. Her friend. There was no air to breathe now. No time to think. It was all wrong.

"Shallow cuts," a voice near her said. Then there was a burning across her stomach...

---

Loki gazed into the sphere as the universe played itself out before his eyes. "The ritual was still completed," he muttered under his breath. It was the first of May today, and he had seen the ritual play out many times, each time slightly differently. The problem with killing Spike, Loki had realized, was that Spike and this Dawn Summers somehow knew each other and it seemed that she counted on him to protect her.

This relationship had worried Loki immensely to begin with. It was now incredibly difficult to find a time to kill the vampire and still keep the girl out of harm's way. She was so volatile, Loki thought, disturbed. Hanna had never been that way. She had been well adjusted. Then again, Hanna had never been told she wasn't actually real.

After getting over the shock of finding out his two goals in life were actually friends, Logan had managed to conclude that the perfect time to kill Spike with little physical risk to Dawn and no traceable link to himself was just after Glory was through with the Key, and just before the death of the slayer. After that battle, there was very little that Spike seemed to do besides watch television and play board games, none of which offered convenient wooden points.

Loki watched as the slayer fell from the tower, dying as she had many times before in these hypothetical universes. Sometimes she died in battle with Glory. Sometimes she died actually preventing the ritual, but always she died. Logan's brow furrowed in a distant worry as the combatants gathered around the slayer's body. Always she died, he thought.

He had never given much thought to the slayer that apparently lived in Sunnydale. He had known a slayer, loved a slayer and watched a slayer die. No one knew more intimately than he the terrible existence that followed these cursed ones around. More cursed even than a specter.

But always she died... Logan blinked. What if, he pondered, just suppose, ignoring the inevitable paradox, Glory never existed. What if this Ben person were killed as a child. What would the twenty third of May have looked like?

Logan watched with a looming sense of dread as the universe began again. Since the recent, unrelated death of her mother, the slayer was patrolling more and more frequently. With no sister, since there had been no need to hide the Key, the slayer had been left all alone in the world and was now assailed by a gang of vampires led by none other than a very bitter William the Bloody.

Still inhibited by the chip, Spike merely directed the attack, luring the exhausted, battered slayer into his carefully laid trap. So simple it was difficult to watch, but Loki could not take his eyes away. He hoped with all hope that this slayer, whose name he couldn't even remember at the moment, would kill the bastard who stood now at the edge of his own trap, but dreaded that she herself would be slain.

He watched with chagrin as she turned unawares to fight a vamp behind her and stepped off the edge into an empty grave. At the bottom was prepared a bed of blades, piercing her in many places.

Loki drew his hand tiredly down his face. Always she died, he realized. There was no way in hell he was going to outplay the Powers That Be. They had planned everything, in every possible future, to work against him.

Loki returned to his original what if, now convinced there was some catch, some reason he should be seeing why killing Spike would be a terrible idea.

---

What If: 2 August, 2001, Sunnydale

Dawn stood atop the tower once again. Her eyes stung from months of crying. Her sister was not coming back. Spike was not coming back. Her mother was not coming back. The wind ruffled her hair. No one even knew she was here.

Tara and Will had stayed with her for the first few weeks, then checked in every other day, then once or twice a week. Now she was all alone. It felt unnatural, the grief that had a hold of her. Like it wasn't her own.

She didn't know why, but Spike's death had been incredibly difficult to bear. Naturally it had all been her fault. No one had ever been able to satisfactorily convince her otherwise. She had spent the summer sitting alone with her despair, watching reruns and B movies in Spike's old crypt, a part of her feeling like he was there with her. The rest of her knowing he was gone.

"I'm sorry, Buffy," Dawn whispered into the wind as her bare toes gripped the edge of the tower's long platform. "You told me to be strong. And I've tried." She felt her throat knot up again. The only place in the whole universe she wanted to be right now was where Buffy and Joyce were right now. Would Spike be there? He had once told her that like her, he wasn't good, but he was okay. Did 'okay' people go to heaven?

Dawn drew in a small breath and let her center of mass carry her over the point of no return. She fell.

---

Twenty One

2 May, 2001, Los Angeles

Logan groaned and crumpled the small page before him, tossing it into the small pile of similarly crumpled pages. No good, he thought. No one that depressed could ever do what was needed. What he needed them to do.

He pounded the table in frustration, making the Now Sphere jump. The small force cleared it of its theoretical universe. It now contained nothing but swirling red cloud. "This is hopeless," he muttered to himself as a form approached him from behind. He didn't recall having given his keys to either Angel or any of his clients—

Logan closed his eyes in silent meditation, trying to quiet the annoyance at having his privacy invaded by Whistler... again.

"What do you want, now?" The conjurer asked, trying to keep his voice low.

"We need to have a little talk."

"About what?" Logan snapped, twisting around in his desk chair to face the demon. Naturally, Whistler still wore his jacket and fedora, and of course, Loki wore one of his now numerous white silk shirts.

Whistler remained calm. "I'd guess by the small forest that's died for that little pile-" he indicated the crumpled papers "that you're no closer to getting what you want from that thing-" he indicated the red sphere on the table.

Loki held up an unwavering finger. "Untrue," he argued banishing the frustration momentarily, "I'm going about this the Thomas Edison way; I now know two hundred ways _not_ to make a light bulb."

"And what if I were to tell Mr. Edison that incandescent bulbs exist only in his imagination, and that they were never meant to be," Whistler slowly sat down on an easy chair in the corner of Logan's apartment. "Do you think he'd believe me?"

Loki turned back to his desk muttering. "I wouldn't if I were him."

"Is it so hard to believe," the demon asked with conviction "that someone like William the Bloody could have some part to play?"

"As opposed to someone like me?" Loki retorted, "Who can't have a part in this little play of yours?"

Whistler raised a surprised eyebrow. "Is that what this is about? You being a Specter?" Whistler shifted in the chair. "You know all that hooey about specters never getting any of the good parts in the Grand Scheme is just bullshit. Those same people said you were no fun at parties!" Loki was busily trying to ignore him. "It just happens that Specters never choose any of the leading roles. 'Why Bother' I think is their motto." He leveled a condemning finger. "Let's face it; you're not like other Specters. You, my friend, are plenty fun at parties."

"Some conjurer I turned out to be, though," Loki laughed humorlessly, "I can't do a simple thing as kill a vampire."

Whistler stood, shaking his head. "All you people," he said, his voice now completely altered, "you walk and talk death and killing, like it's as common as getting a shoe polished." He ignored Loki's odd look, clearly indicating he had never had a shoe polish. "Taking life, even unlife is a complex and messy affair. For you it's as simple as in-and-out with a pointy stick, but for the guys upstairs..." he blew out a sigh. "The paperwork's a mile high. Endings are always stressful, especially when they involve people as... unique as those surrounding the Slayer. Death in any form is no simple matter. Not nearly so simple as just letting stuff live. Inertia: Stuff has a tendency to keep doing what it's doing. Death is the abrupt end to inertia. It's the sudden jerk to end all motion. But not only does it end a life, or unlife if you prefer, but it ends a whole series of possibilities; possible futures that could have been." Whistler paced before the listening conjurer now.

"All those futures that included your daughter growing up, going to college, having children... they were all cancelled the day she died. That kind of universal distortion is very unsettling. By the time what exists gets fed into that little toy-" Whistler thumbed the red Dagon Sphere, "-the universe that _is_, which is about to become the universe that _was_, was the only universe that could have been, because of all the arising and collapsing possibilities upstairs." The demon crossed his arms and plunked back down into the easy chair. "Get it?"

Logan had been following quite closely until the image of his daughter had entered his mind. Hanna in college... His mind reeled. Hanna with children. These things he hadn't considered in a long time. Months ago, he had pondered a what-if where Hanna had lived. Of course the answer plunged him immediately into a paradox. If his daughter had lived, if even the slightest change had occurred in that time, he wouldn't be in his position now to have instituted the change, thus preventing the change itself. The images, however, as vivid as any crystal ball, swirled in the sunyata of his mind. Hanna in a black gown on graduation day. Hanna on her wedding day. Hanna holding her firstborn. Logan felt his throat tighten as he remembered Hanna as a newborn herself, cradled in his arms. Even then he had known of the evil that lay in wait in the world around her. Even then, on some level, Spike had been his enemy.

"I have work to do," Loki said coldly, turning back to his pad of paper and sphere.

Whistler slowly stood. There was a quiet sadness in his eyes that Loki could not see. The demon opened his mouth to say something, but there was no reason to waste good words. Finally he simply turned for the door. "See ya around, kid," and he was gone.

---

Twenty Two

23 May, 2001, Sunnydale

Glory shoved her minions aside, deciding they were standing far too close for their rotten smell. As she waded through the small adoring crowd of filth-bags, a particular one came before her, bowing low.

"Many pardons, most lustrous one," he began, bowing low again. She sighed and was about to shove him aside as well when a tall figure behind the mob caught her attention.

"Quickly, what is it?" She demanded, in no mood right now for games. She was hungry.

"One most tall and unholy has requested an audience with your radiance, oh radiant one," the underling said quickly. As he spoke, the tall, unholy and decidedly pointy demon strode through the muttering crowd of minions. The sounds of construction in the background ceased momentarily as he snatched a minion by the cloak and threw him into the scaffolding.

Glory raised an eyebrow. She stood her ground as the demon approached, admiring his boldness, while pitying his stupidity. She considered his two long horns which protruded up from his dark head, making him look like something removed from a demonic safari. Something that might have been hunted for sport in her world.

When the demon was close enough to her, and there were no minions between them, he raised one arm and pointed to her menacingly. She looked unimpressed, however, as he spoke.

"Give it to me," he said in a raspy, throaty voice. He turned his outstretched hand over, closing his fingers into a fist. "I will have it now."

Glory crossed her arms and shifted to one foot in annoyance. "Just who the hell do you think you are? Pushing around my filth, demanding to have my things! I mean, you _look_ like you were raised in a zoo, but honestly!"

The demon's nostrils flared and his eyes grey wide. "I will have it _now_," he demanded, his voice growing louder, making the surrounding minions pull back a bit farther.

She reexamined him then shifted to her other foot, narrowing her eyes. "Did the Slayer send you?" She said, as if it was all some sort of joke at her expense. "Well, you can go back and tell her that it's _my_ Key now and also that I'm very disappointed she sent a big stinky Werlech demon to do her rescuing." Glory began to turn, satisfied with herself.

The Werlech demon howled, lunging forward, to the horror of the minions who rushed in to surround him. As if it were an afterthought, Glory turned and caught him by the throat, crushing it tightly. "You just don't quit, do you?" There was some trace of admiration behind the smugness in the hellgod. "Well, if you won't leave... will you join me for lunch?"

The Werlech demon screamed in agony as the hellgod's fingers reached into his brain. With her fingertips stroking his skull, none too delicately, she frowned. She felt no more satisfied. Inside this big ugly, she found nothing. She reached deeper and he screamed all the louder, his voice wavering and gurgling as she reached up to her wrists. Nope, still dry.

She raised an eyebrow in surprise, removing her hands from his forehead. "Hm," she thought, perplexed. "Let's have a look-see, shall we?" And her solidified fingers closed around his horns, her right thumb grasping a small notch in the base of one. She pulled.

There was a short grunt then the demon's head split in two, letting black bile spill out down his black jacket. Glory held the half which had been torn from its body in her right hand, gazing curiously into the cavity that was the creature's skull. "What d'ya know? Not a thing in there." With a wet _thunk_, the body fell to the ground. She tossed the other half of the skull on top of it. "Get rid of it," she offered, turning away again, "I'm busy."

---

23 May, 2001, Los Angeles

Loki's pen pressed firmly into the paper before him. There was no writing on the page, just a groove which was becoming deeper by the minute as his hand jammed the pen into it. Soon his hand quivered with the effort of trying to drive the pen through the table.

"That girl, what's her name?"

"Stephanie," Loki said tonelessly.

"Stephanie, right," Angel nodded. "She get her soul yet?" The vampire folded the newspaper and began reading the next page.

Loki clenched and unclenched his jaw. "No," he said, keeping his voice emotionless, "and she never will. She doesn't really want it; she lost it on purpose. She's a party girl," he added resentfully.

"Huh," Angel nodded distantly, his eyes scanning the column. He had come to Loki's as he infrequently did when he needed a spell written, a spell that the AI team couldn't manage on their own. He waited now as the conjurer wrote it for him, unaware of the unusual tension in the room.

Loki returned his attention to the blank page. His thoughts were on anything but the spell requested. His loose partnership with Angel Investigations was a joke. His talent was wasted on them and their petty quest to right the wrongs, help the helpless. Coddle the useless, Loki thought bitterly. These people were beneath his help. He had bigger fish to fry. And this was the week. If he didn't finish it now, then he would have to wait months before the Key was again stable enough to risk destroying Spike. It had to be now. It had to be tonight.

The Now Sphere had indicated that a wooden bolt through the vampire's heart while she slept would leave her grieving but not suicidal, since there would be no evidence that he had actually died. Once she was done the grieving process, she would be ready to fulfill her destiny. At least, Loki thought, his interpretation of her destiny. It had to be tonight.

Loki stood from the table, grabbed his already prepared duffle bag and strode to the door of his apartment. "Your spell's on the table," he lied. "I have to go."

---

24 May, 2001, Sunnydale

It was three o'clock in the morning. Spike swallowed. It hurt to move any muscle in his body. His fall had ensured that. It also hurt to think. Her fall had ensured that. The Slayer was dead. The thought rang through his mind. And it had not been a good day.

He recalled with vile guilt his promise to her that he would be there the day she died; be there when her death wish came true, to have himself a good day. It had been the worst day of his life, and of all the days thereafter. He had killed two slayers himself in his time. One in China, during some uprising or other, the other... his eyes flicked back and forth for an instant. Thirty years ago, was it? On a subway car in New York. He had called those good days. The feeling that pervaded him now was the very antithesis of good.

She snuggled deeper into the crook of his arm, making a small sound. Spike looked down from his memories of happiness which now only brought him pain to the small creature which trusted him so completely. She trusted so completely in this vampire that had killed so many... saved so few.

Dawn's face was wet with tears. She still wore the dress from the bloodletting ceremony, her cuts held shut by his coat which was wrapped around her. He sat, and she lay against him, in his crypt, where they had gone from the battle at Glory's tower. Spike had wanted to stay by Buffy's body; had wanted to stay with her forever, but knew it would only make things harder. And he had a promise to keep. He gently stroked Dawn's hair. She moved against him, too tired now to cry any more, too tired even to sleep.

She needed to sleep, Spike knew, they all needed to put this day behind them. One day at a time. Spike pursed his lips and began to sing, his voice little more than a whisper, but carrying the perfect tune nonetheless. "Hello darkness my old friend…" his voice nearly cracked as he spoke words for the first time since… He took a breath and tried to carry the tune. "I've come to talk with you again… Because a vision softly creeping," she slowly closed her eyes, letting her head fit between his arm and chest. "…left its seeds while I was sleeping… and the vision, which was planted in my brain… still remains…" He closed his own eyes and let his head rest against the stone of the wall behind the coffin upon which they sat. "Within the sounds… of silence."

Her breathing slowed to a rhythm as his voice eased her off into unconsciousness.

"In restless dreams I walked along,

Down the streets of cobblestones,

'Neath the halo of a streetlamp,

I turned my collar to the cold and damp,

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light,

Which split the night,

And touched the sounds… of silence."

When she was silent and sleeping, Spike slowly opened his eyes. Looking through the thin slits he let his voice remain quiet but turned it ice cold. "Well are you just going to stand there and think about it, or are you going to take your bloody shot?"

Loki stood at the entrance to the crypt, his crossbow raised. He was frozen, however, unable to close his finger around the trigger. Although the bolt was aimed directly at the vampire's chest, the specter's gaze was locked unwaveringly upon the girl who lay asleep on the coffin. Logan hadn't seen her in the flesh since the day they took her... almost a year ago. He couldn't draw breath. The sound of Spike's lullaby still hanging in the air – just like the songs he had sung to Hanna.

"Leave us alone," Spike said quietly, closing his eyes and setting his head back again, too tired to fight.

Logan lowered the weapon, slowly turning and stepping out of the crypt. Twice now, he thought grudgingly, twice he hadn't had the heart to finish the vampire. All his thoughts were directed towards the planning and execution of moments like these and here he was: brought to his knees by a lullaby. A part of him was sickened by his weakness. He stalked away through the cemetery towards his car.

There would come a time, he promised himself, when Spike, in his true evil, soulless nature, would find himself confronted one last time with the enemy of Destiny. On that day, Loki promised, I will not hesitate.

---

Twenty Three

9 July, 2001, Los Angeles

Stephanie shook her head in disgust. "You son of a bitch." She raised her hand to slap him, but he stepped away gracefully. "You mean I did all that fuc–"

Loki raised a finger. He cocked his head, a little disappointed. "Language," he said softly.

"I did all that fucking meditation crap," she raised her voice, "and– and 'get thyself clean' shit for nothing?"

Loki pressed a hand to his silk covered chest. "I'm hurt. Aren't you a better person now than you were?"

She threw her fists to her sides in anger. "I'm not a person at all! I'm a... Specter!" she spat as if the word were an obscenity that even she was loath to use.

"And what's wrong with being a Specter?" Loki prompted, burying the insult as efficiently as ever. "It allowed for your... lifestyle quite effectively, didn't it?" He dropped her used syringe to the table top where a mirror and a razor blade had been hastily covered upon his entry. "And you obviously don't want to give up that lifestyle, so what are you complaining about?"

Her eyes shifted back and forth furiously, trying to come up with some explanation. Her fists shook at her sides, either from anger or from the spike.

"You get to fuck and cut to your heart's content now, without a care in this world about what it'll cost you. You have been given a rare gift, Steph," he said patronizingly, "a life with no regrets. When you die, there'll be no booming voice, no blinding light and circles of fire, just an end to... this." He glanced again at his reflection looking up from the table top, marred by a white streak. "So by all means," he finished, "enjoy your life. Enjoy your last—" he glanced at his watch, "sixteen hours."

He turned to go, wiping his hands disgustedly on his khakis. She let the tear of frustration roll down her cheek, unaware, perhaps, of its presence. "Bastard!" She shouted after him, feeling her life slipping away, and any hope of redemption with it. She sank to her knees in front of her motel room bed, letting her bare arms hang across her thighs, sobbing uncontrollably. "You... fucking bastard," she wept, doubling over, covering her face in her hands. Her sobs sounded out past the door where Loki stood with his back turned, listening.

He blinked stoically, thinking it was the perfect time to take up smoking. He glanced curiously over his shoulder, noticing the tall dark form standing to one side of her door in the moonlight.

"Pretty cold," Angel observed, his face unused to hiding the pain he felt for others.

"Are you offering me your jacket?" Loki asked sardonically, glancing quickly over his shoulder again. Angel said nothing. Loki looked up into the night sky, listening to the desperate sobs from inside. "Give it a minute," he sighed at last, closing his eyes and letting the moon bathe his face in its glow.

After three minutes, Angel turned away from the conjurer, stuffing his hands in his pockets and staring back for the hotel. Sudden motion made him pause.

Loki took a deep breath and turned, throwing the girl's door open and stepping inside. She looked up from red eyes with nothing left but desperate hope. That was all he wanted, because it was all she needed. She had hit bottom and been allowed to feel that there was no climbing out.

Loki pulled the small vial from his pocket and uncorked it with a small pop. To her confused but still desperately hope filled face, he drew the vial back, then whipped it forward, spraying her with fine droplets. Then came the part he liked least of all.

As the water met her clammy skin, she immediately felt its burn. She collapsed from her kneeling position onto her back on the thin carpet of the motel, letting out a breathless whimper of agony. The world and all its hidden places, all its dark secrets soared around her, combing through itself, looking for her missing piece. Then it was found. In a pulse of light that emanated from her chest but burned through her eyes and mouth, nostrils and fingernails, her soul was rejoined with her body, leaving her moaning incoherently on the floor.

Loki finally turned, sweeping the drugs from the table into a trash bag and carrying it out with him, past Angel, to the dumpster where he tossed it. He wiped his hands together in a small amount of satisfaction then led Angel away from the cheap motel.

"You always stay for that last bit?" the vampire asked, walking faster to fall into step beside the conjurer, unaccustomed to being led.

"Always," Loki nodded, a small smirk on his face.

"So, she's all... whole now?" the vamp pressed, a little uncomfortable with the terminology.

"Yup. And she doesn't even have time to screw it up." He glanced at his watch. "At five o'clock tomorrow afternoon, she'll be hit by a runaway Lincoln Towncar whose brake lines have been cut."

"I can't believe you told her that," Angel shook his head.

"I didn't tell her _how_ it would happen," the conjurer defended, "but she needed to know her time was running out. She had to really want it, you know?"

Angel shrugged. "What do I know about it? I'm just glad Angelus is all tucked away in obscurity, never to see the light of day again," he cocked his head, "so to speak" he added with a frown.

---

Twenty Four

9 July, 2001, Los Angeles

Loki walked cautiously down the light and dark patched street. He had left Angel at the hotel and continued now on foot to his apartment, enjoying the cool night breeze.

As confident as he was in his own ability to defend himself, Loki knew only a true idiot would be careless enough to walk unarmed through Los Angeles at one o'clock in the morning. Loki's hand mindlessly grasped the stake in his pocket. He wore no jacket in the summer, and only when an unusually cool breeze took the ruffles in his shirt did he regret it.

His steps ceased to echo as the wind picked up, and the solitary conjurer slid both hands into his pockets. Again he reminded himself of his supreme self sufficiency, and as it happened, he was still reminding himself of it when two columns of steam shot out at him from an alley he passed.

Loki jumped back with a strangled yelp of surprise, and only as his own breathing quickened did he realize that it was the steam of breath that he had seen entering the cone of light from a street lamp.

The man in the silk shirt backed up steadily as the hollow clop, clop of hooves on pavement resounded from the alley. His eyes growing wide, Loki watched as the warhorse emerged, its breath stabbing out into the night as two great jets of steam from its flaring nostrils.

In the sudden silence that came when the wind died down, Loki could hear the flexing of the creature's muscles, the creak of its joins, the gnawing of its bit as it stepped deliberately towards him.

Soon the beast brought into the light the rider, his mailed fists loosely holding the reins, his iron clad feet steadily pressing into the stirrups. His head was covered by a chain mail hood, leaving only his lightly stubbled face exposed to the night air.

Loki made several more steps back before finally finding himself off the curb and on the street. With the quiet, yet distinctive clink of gently flexing chain mail, the horseman released the reins from one hand.

As his horse made its way fully into the pale orange light of the street lamp, Loki marveled at the authenticity of the garb. He looked to have stepped straight from the pages of history, right out of the Crusades. The white tunic he wore over his mail shirt bore a great red cross, as did the shield which swung from its strap at his side. The helmet, which clunked continually against his knee, bore a metal cross on its brow, the lower stalk of which extended to form a nose guard.

The sword was the next thing Loki noticed, watching as it tipped horizontal with the motion of the rider's hips as he slowed his horse. Last of all was the standard, merely a tall pike from which hung a white flag, bearing a red cruciform as did the shirt and shield. The flag was motionless now as the breath of wind was silenced.

Loki drew his brow together in a contemplative frown as the soldier's hand came to rest on the shaft of his standard. There was the telltale chink of metal chain links grinding together as he shifted position in his saddle. The steed's tale tossed once then all was silent.

Loki could think of nothing to say. He had never encountered anything like this before, in all his dealings with other-worldly affairs. Vampires were one thing... Was this some sort of demon? A military scout from some other plane? Loki's expression softened instantly at his next thought; a knight of the Byzantine Empire, displaced by the General/Key during that battle so long ago?

The crusader was the first to speak. "By your vestment, I would know you as a nobleman." It was really a question, an introductory statement at the very least, to which he expected a response.

Loki looked down at his ruffled white shirt and straight, formal-looking pants. "You..." he began uncertainly, "may know me as such if you wish."

The knight shifted uneasily, as if thrown off guard by the answer. He tightened his grip on his standard and began again. "Are you the wizard that comes here from the East?" When Loki paused, searching his mind carefully for an answer that would reveal nothing, the knight was sent again into unrest. His hand dropped from his standard and found his sword hilt, drawing the blade quickly with the sound of metal on metal. "I would have your answer," he said threateningly, though not without some trace of fear.

Loki, determining the original question to be harmless enough by tone, raised his hands peacefully. "I am a wizard," he acknowledged, "and I have spent time in the Far East." He made no mention that Tibet was actually closer to the West.

The knight lowered his sword then raised it again to lay the blade harmlessly against his mailed shoulder. "I am Alexius," he said, raising his chin with a small amount of pride.

Loki's eyebrows slowly crept up in disbelief. "Alexius?" he asked in unrestrained confusion. "Alexius the Second of Byzantium?" The tale told by Haargan of the battle, back at the lamasery slowly dredged itself up in his memory.

Alexius took on an odd look himself, raising one eyebrow. "How would that be possible?" He asked in turn. "I am Alexius the Fifth, of course."

Loki eased noticeably. Of course, he thought, Alexius' descendant. Naturally, he now chided himself, there was no reason to believe the Dagon Sphere which the monks had created to prolong their lives would have been put to use on normal soldiers, or even princes, of Tarnis' time. Though as he stood before the great muscular warhorse and its well armed and mail-clad rider on the streets of Los Angeles, normality was not something that seemed at once logical in Loki's mind.

After that brief pause, Alexius V turned in his saddle and drew something long and pointed from his saddlebag. He held it as he would a sword and Loki instinctively withdrew several more steps and raised his arms defensively. Knight or no knight, magic was Loki's ally.

But when Alexius turned back around and saw Loki's stance, he was unable to keep a grin from crossing his metal-framed face. "Peace," he called out with a hint of a laugh. He drew the pointed thing from behind him and tossed it to the ground just beyond the curb. "Our enemies were one, I suspect," he slid his sword from his shoulder with the ring of steel, then drove it easily back into its scabbard. "We pursued the same foe, I think."

Loki stepped forward and knelt, his hand running along the slightly curved and deadly looking object. There was a continued moment when he could not identify it, then it came back to him like a punch in the gut and he nearly fell over backwards in the asphalt. The base of the long black horn met a jagged fragment of skull, and near the base where they connected was a small notch, cut from the bone, Loki slowly realized, by this knight's ancestor's blade.

Logan swallowed, two pieces of his life connecting in the foreground of his thoughts. Two pieces he had never had and inkling were related. His mind's eye now pictured the Byzantine battle quite differently; the army of demons led by Logan's friend from Central Park. The General Werlech demon.

Destiny was laughing at him now, he guessed, the joke that was his life was taking form. The punch-line was set. Had Whistler known? Many more questions plagued him. Before he could even hypothesize suitable answers, he remembered his companion. He blinked for a moment to clear his mind of the chaos he felt. "You..." he managed, "you killed a great evil. I am in your debt."

Alexius raised his head and at first made a small nod of appreciation, but then closed his eyes and crossed himself with his gloved hand. "Say not that you are indebted to the one who killed this foe, for it was not I, nor any I commanded who separated this creature from its head." To Loki's questioning eyes he replied, "That which cannot be named is responsible. The one you call the Beast. I merely happened upon its corpse."

Loki was being hit with too much information all at once. That Beast had killed the Werlech demon? The Werlech demon was the General? This knight was Alexius' heir? It was all a jumble. Finally, Loki stood from the street and took a deep breath. "What do you want of me?" he asked in a tone he hoped would not betray his helplessness.

Alexius stared at the conjurer for some minutes, as if trying to ascertain his trustworthiness. Finally he glanced at the deserted street. "This world has become chaotic," he decided, "infidels are everywhere and the voice of God is not heard. You yourself are not a man of God," Alexius stated, blinking indifferently, "as you practice the dark arts and are therefore in league with the devil in one fashion or another." There was no malice in Alexius' voice, just certainty. "However," he continued, "you sought the General and you were plagued by the Beast as the monks were. Our enemies, though fewer now, were one. As Byzantium was once allied with Rome, we are allies now, are we not?"

Loki shrugged. "The Beast was an enemy of your General demon, but that does not make it your ally."

Alexius nodded in acknowledgment. "You have wit," he agreed. "And not once, even when I drew my sword, did you call magic against me, so you are brave. I sense no evil in your heart, though that is not my specialty." The knight lifted his left leg and brought it over his mount's shoulders, hopping down from the saddle with the clink of his chain mail. "I would still know your name, wizard."

Loki was at first resigned to hesitation, in no way comforted by the clink of the iron shod boots on the cement of the sidewalk. Finally, however, looking into the dull grey eyes of the enemy of his enemies, he relented. "Logan," he answered, using his real name for the first time in years with a stranger.

"Logan," Alexius repeated, as if weighing the strength of the name. "Well, my lord wizard," he said at last, obviously preferring title to informality, "it seems that while my General demon and the Beast are absent, we have again before us a common foe."

Loki raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

Alexius nodded gravely. "While never having spoken to you directly, nor having heard your right proper name, I have been following the works, until recently of a wizard from the East called Loki." Loki tensed. "And I see now that it is you who are this man of magic." The knight made a small bow. "I am honored to be among the few to know your true name."

Loki relaxed slightly, realizing that had been unconsciously fingering his stake in his picket. He now removed his hand from his pocket, feeling silly for having thought, even unconsciously, that a pointed wooden stick would be of use against chain mail. "What of this foe we now share?" the conjurer asked, crossing his arms before him. "I have found the last few months to be quiet and relatively demon-free."

"As I have, for the most of it," Alexius assented with a tip of his head. "Even my holy quest has relented in its ferocity somewhat, since news of the departure of the Beast has reached me. With no impending need now to destroy the link, and no Abomination remaining upon which to exact my vengeance for the slaughter of my kinsmen..."

Loki let all of this slip by him. He wasn't sure what this link was, or what it had to do with a holy quest, but it was over now that the Beast was gone, he guessed. On the other hand, Loki could understand vengeance. If Alexius's 'kinsmen' had been anything like the Order of Dagon, then the Beast had probably done a number on them.

The knight continued. "And once I heard of your, albeit, questionable involvement with the monks of Tarnis," Alexius raised a clearly disapproving eyebrow, "I thought it prudent to become knowledgeable about you. Now I see," he said proudly, "that you are a decent fellow, even if you commune with darkness.

"Our new foe," he continued, "is a demon the likes of which I have never before seen, nor even heard of. It is crafty and clever at disguises, a master of deceit, it conceals itself with ease. It employs vampires to do its bidding in matters of conflict. I have encountered it only once before, in one of its many guises, and would not relish meeting it again." Alexius began to pace back and forth, describing to the best of his ability the unholy nature of the demon. "It deals with souls," he went on unaware of the cold reaction this provoked from the conjurer. "With the buying and selling and trading of souls, a most vile market, it would seem, with those things of hell which require them for sustenance."

Loki had gone perfectly still, a terrible thought crossing his mind. Destiny, you piece of– "Was your General," he said carefully, "a merchant of this market, perhaps?"

Alexius ceased pacing at once, an impressed look on his face. "Truly, he was," the knight nodded. "Skilled in stealing souls of import which he would trade for the elements he needed to continue on his quest."

Loki shuddered at the thought of his immortal soul being the appetizer in some grizzly demon feast. I hope you cleaned your plates, he thought grimly. Finally the question found him. "And how is this foe a shared one?"

Alexius nodded; an honest question. "I noted your connection when I discovered the ledger of souls bought by the demon in the past few years."

Loki's eyes slowly widened, his jaw tightening, his knuckles white.

---

Twenty Five

9 July, 2001, Los Angeles

"You _sold_ it?" Loki shoved the girl against the wall of the motel. Her things were packed and she was dressed as though she was leaving town. "You told me you _lost_ it," he said slowly, deliberately, angrily. "You told me it was _stolen_. Now I find out you sold your soul, and the creep to whom you sold it, from whom you had me steal it back, is now after me!" He shoved her against the wall again, harder.

She bit her lip, caught in a lie. "I— I was high," Stephanie made a weak shrug. "I don't remember what happened."

"What did you get for it, Stephanie?" he glared at her, his eyes deadly enough to melt sheet metal. "A hundred bucks? Another ten grams of shit?" Her expression told him he was close enough to the mark. "And now you thought you'd just skip out and let me handle it?"

"You can handle yourself," she sneered, shouldering her bag again and starting past him. It was already late afternoon and her flight left in a few hours. "And if you can't–" he slammed her back against the wall, making the window panes rattle, "–then that's one less sadistic freak Specter."

"As opposed to one less gutless crack whore–" she slapped him so fast he didn't have time to blink. He had deserved it. Not for his comment, but for allowing himself to get so carried away by his emotions.

Loki clenched his jaw and buried the impulse to strike back at her. "I can handle myself," he said evenly. "But what makes you think you can?" Somewhere in the back of his mind he noticed the squealing of tires to his right. "You think he couldn't find you? You think you'd be safe from him?" A sudden impulse made him glance at his watch, his fingers tightening on her shoulders. "Well," he said, the anger dropping from his voice, "it doesn't really matter now." A vicious little smile took one corner of his lips. "He'll never get a chance to kill you—"

Stephanie's look of confusion was soon replaced by one of terror; she gave a small yelp as his strong arms pulled her from the wall and shoved her away from the motel. She stumbled backwards onto the sidewalk, looking at his leer as though he had grown a third eye. His look kept her distracted as the Lincoln Towncar jumped the curb and slammed into the girl, throwing her body down the street.

Loki glanced down at his watch as it began to beep frantically that it was five o'clock. He gritted his teeth, the leer turning into a snarl. He threw his fist towards the sky with a shout. "How's that for fucking Destiny!?" When there was no response, just the shouts of onlookers and the shattering of automotive glass, Loki turned from the scene and headed for home.

---

10 July, 2001, Sunnydale

Dawn strode easily into Spike's crypt where he lay sleeping. Clothes, some of which were hers; tools; magazines; liquor bottles and movie cases all lay in a mess around the stone floor. "Spike!" She called loudly, grinning as he jumped from the middle of some dream he was having. "Wanna come steal stuff?" she asked eagerly, "or... burn stuff anyway?"

Noticing it was only his apprentice delinquent, the vampire settled back on his stone slab. "Sorry, luv," he mumbled, "Spike's all tuckered out."

"Well, what about tonight?" she pressed, hopefully. She pushed aside some jeans and a pair of cable cutters, sitting down near the coffin.

"We'll see," he promised, then opened one eye, "if you're good, that is."

She made the sign of crossing her heart and took on a completely innocent look. "I can be good," she insisted, sitting straighter amid the heaps of garbage. "Well," she amended, "I can be okay."

---

10 September, 1173, Myriocephalon, Byzantine Empire

Alexius II frowned, his face now quite used to the configuration. "I don't think we can deny," he said at last to those assembled there, "that there is some... link to evil and this, our good kingdom." There were several nods from the knights and clerics around the table. The monks said little and made little known about their thoughts. "The question remains—"

"The Key is that link!" one of the knights shouted, pounding his goblet upon the table top. There was an uproar from around the table as cups were banged in agreement. "It chains this kingdom to the works of Satan," the knight persisted, "we must sever the link to let the evil fall away!"

"Aye!" others shouted, "the link must be severed." The banging of the cups increased, even as the monks shook their heads. "Sever the link!" the chant rose.

Alexius calmed them with a gentle hand. "Clerics," he said, turning to the priest who stood behind, to his left. The man stepped forward. "Is it the will of God that this device be destroyed?" The mutters and clatter of cups ceased abruptly.

The priest strode forward, making a small bow. When he looked up again, he shot a look of utter contempt at Tarnis, who sat near the end of the table, neither food nor drink set before him. The priest spoke, his tone level and his eyes on the prince. "This device of infidel sorcery," he cast a glance at Tarnis, "is of course no threat to the armies of Christ," he and the other clerics crossed themselves, "—but I would recommend that it be destroyed, with all deliberate haste, as to possess it is to invite the devil into our hearts, and the Saracen into our lands." There were nods of agreement from the knights and poisoned looks directed towards the monks.

"You are certain, then?" Alexius stroked his short beard, thoughtfully. He had nothing against Tarnis, aside from his complete inability to communicate with the more educated man, but since the supposed battle, remembered only by Tarnis and his order, satanic occurrences had begun to plague the company of knights. Many had begun to suspect that Tarnis himself was in league with the Saracens, or the devil himself, and something had to be done.

The priest nodded his head curtly. "It is certain," he said with a cold look in his eyes. "It is the will of God." His eyes darted back to the table as Tarnis stood stiffly and after a burning glare at the cleric, turned and stormed away. The other monks followed.

---

11 July, 2001, Los Angeles

"But Tarnis and his monks took the Key and disappeared," Alexius V finished, tearing a piece of bread into chunks and tossing them to the ducks. He and Logan sat quietly on one of the park benches surrounding the large duck pond. Logan had convinced the crusader to wear a trench coat over his battle gear, since he could not be convinced to change his clothing altogether.

"That is why evil continued to plague my ancestor and his knights. We were unable to fulfill the wishes of God." The knight tossed another piece of bread into the water. It was quickly snapped up by the birds.

"The Key is the link," Logan said quietly, almost sadly. So that was the holy quest. To sever the link.

"And the link must be severed," answered the knight from tradition, "such is the will of God."

The wind picked up for a moment and some combination of the smell of wind and water and the sounds of the ducks made Logan, for an instant, feel as though he were back in Central Park, sitting calmly beside the Werlech demon; the General— and for a moment, he was not a Specter at all.

"But I was distracted," Alexius said, almost regretfully, throwing the last of his bread into the water. "I learned of the presence of the General and sought him out, finding him dead but weeks ago at the hands of the Beast." His voice now became distant and Logan could tell he was having a difficult time with it. "Now it comes to my ears that the company —the Knights of Byzantium— were destroyed at the hands of the Beast as they sought to fulfill their holy quest..." There was a long pause. "And so I am left alone, the importance of the link now fading and even the Order of Dagon gone from importance, for the same reason. I am a crusader without a Crusade," he looked sadly into Logan's eyes. "Tell me, wizard, where is my Holy Land?"

Logan took a deep breath. And what is a crusader without a Crusade, he thought to himself as he stared at the knight in the trench coat beside him. A Templar? He suppressed a sardonic chuckle: A problem. Obviously Alexius could not be allowed to learn of the whereabouts of the Key; not with his 'sever the link' attitude. Things were too delicate now, emotions, conditions... futures. Logan blinked, thinking of Whistler for the second time in months. He wouldn't... The conjurer dismissed the notion.

Perhaps, however, this knight could be used to flush out this new common foe of theirs. Considering the knight was the only one of the two of them who had actually seen this foe, and had apparently spent some time tracking him, it seemed unlikely Logan would be able to finish this without the horseman's help... at least, not before one of the two of them was picked off by a gang of vampires.

Logan sighed at long last. "Then let us be partners," he said at last, staring out at the circling ducks. "We will forget our past lives of tragedy and conquer this new foe as if we were old allies."

Alexius looked up from his sad remembrances and nodded, evidently pleased. "Thank you, my lord Logan," he said wholeheartedly. "I was in need of a path for my spirit and a foe for my sword, and trustworthy allies outside of my company have been too few."

Logan nodded, not entirely sure this was a good idea, but at least it was one element working for him and not against him for once. "Well then," he said, standing from the bench, brushing the breadcrumbs from his khakis, "great battles shall we have tomorrow, but tonight," the conjurer's eyes glimmered, "we party."

Alexius stood and followed Logan uncertainly from the duck pond. "Party?"

Logan patted the knight on the shoulder. "Like it's eleven ninety nine, my friend."

---

Intermission

"Have you met my friend Richard?" Loki shouted over the blaring music. The woman gave Alexius an odd look. "His friends call him the Lionheart," the conjurer went on, throwing back another cement mixer; the specialty of the establishment. "Lionheart," Loki addressed the knight, "do that thing you do."

Alexius, his inhibitions lowered by the potency of the ale, drew his sword obligingly and with its flat side lifted the martini glass from the woman's hand. He let the glass slide down the long blade until it came to rest at the hilt, at which point he raised the sword quickly aloft, almost as a salute, but effectively bringing the glass to his lips, where he drank its contents in one gulp.

"Bravo," she clapped, eliciting a smile of pride from the knight. "Though of course now I need another drink," and she turned resentfully and headed for the bar.

Loki shrugged his shoulders with an exaggerated sigh. "French," to which Alexius nodded knowingly. Soon, however, another young woman caught the conjurer's eye. "Have you met my friend Charlemagne?"

The woman raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Charlemagne?" she asked dubiously. She was obviously not drunk enough.

Loki nodded nonetheless. "Though, when he gets a bit sloshed, he will answer to Mary Queen of Scots." Loki patted Alexius on the shoulder. "Mary, do that thing you do."

The music grew louder, everyone grew drunker and the dancing commenced. Loki had danced with nearly every person in the club, not including the knight who was still showing a young woman the extent of his chain-mail coverage, when the conjurer got an idea.

With a series of deft movements, he climbed the table nearest the wall and, making Spiderman proud, he crawled up the wall, beyond noticing, until he leapt out to catch a beam that divided the ceiling. There were several shocked gasps from below as people looked up.

Loki blew on the end of his finger, making it sparkle and flare, like a match when it first caught. He waved his finger around himself, leaving a glowing trail that lasted several seconds. A few people made half hearted attempts to clap.

"Do you love me?" He shouted down to them, drawing several laughs and even some catcalls. He pointed his finger and a small explosion of light lit the room. There were now more gasps and more bacchanalian laughs of approval. "I said, do you love me!" Now there was a chorus of yes from below, and nearly everyone was laughing at the ridiculous display.

Loki held on tight to the ceiling beam with his hands, then stretched his legs out horizontally, laying flat across the ceiling. It took an enormous amount of strength. "How much?" he laughed down at them, and let go.

He closed his eyes as he fell straight down into them, feeling the ocean of hands and fingers catch him, lifting him and parading him around. Waves of euphoria washed over him. This was what it was to have a soul, he knew. Somewhere inside himself, he had forgotten he was different. He opened his mouth and let a full throated laugh escape.

He turned his head and saw Alexius disappear into one of the many private back rooms, led by the hand by the woman he had been talking to. Loki smiled even more, letting his mind go and falling away into bliss, the pounding music sending his consciousness spinning faster than he had ever thought possible.


	4. Chapter 4

Part IV – The Quest

Twenty Six

16 September, 2001, Los Angeles

The world was falling apart. Even with his keep internationalist's perspective, Logan could tell that a kind of click had awoken in people's mind.

It was less than a week since the Trade Center had fallen, but already, it felt like a lifetime. As if the world had always been this way. Logan guessed it was the same feeling of eternity one felt after crossing any unique, life-changing threshold. For someone to witness death for the first time. To kill for the first time also, perhaps. To lose one's innocence in so many different ways that we can't keep count, then give up counting altogether. We soon forget how the world could have been any other way. Was it so different? How could it have been?

Logan peered into the Dagon Sphere, his teeth gritted, the table edge nearly crushed under his tight grip. He was not worried about the world at large now, however. His own world was falling apart.

"They brought her back?" His breathing was shallow and harsh. He ran his fingers through his unkempt blond hair, now quite long and shaggy, having been deprived of more than the occasional washing for a month now. "Why the—" his jaw worked furiously. He knew that the entities he addressed had no intention of answering him. They never answered him. Not with words, anyway. Only with twisted outcomes and twisted fates.

They answered as such now. "Buffy Summers," Loki hissed; the root of so many of his problems. The strongest pawn on a board full of pawns. Appointed guardian of the Key. Unwitting guardian of William the Bloody.

With the haze of such things of uncertainty as the witches' magical aptitude becoming clear, possible futures crystallized, growing more and more solid as they drew near, until, passing through the instant around which the Dagon Sphere had been constructed, they took form and became the present. Tick.

Loki looked now into the red sphere and saw what was certain. He saw things he didn't like. Naturally, the world was working against him and he was already working against time. If it hadn't been for this one unfortunate event, he could have had them both within a month; two birds with one car ride. Now she was back, and things were not going to be so easy.

---

What If: 9 January, 2002, Sunnydale

Buffy lay next to her sleeping lover. The world was finally coming together, she thought, staring up at the ceiling. She scrunched the sheet tighter about herself as the warm tingliness of a really good orgasm started to fade away.

She bunched up the covers gingerly about her and turned, resting her head on his elbow. Just looking at him spread warmth throughout her. Granted, not the tingly warmth, but a deep, satiating warmth, that she had only ever felt with one other person. Even now, somehow, that feeling for Angel was fading from her memory.

Spike stirred in his sleep, making the gentle motion of licking his lips. Buffy smiled, knowing he tasted her. She slowly leaned forward and placed a kiss at the corner of his eye.

He mumbled something, now clearly only pretending to be asleep. When he seemed to go back to sleep, however, she made a little pouty frown and propped her head up with the heel of her hand.

As if on cue, with a little snarl, the vampire rolled over her, pinning her arms above her head. She gave a little yelp of surprise and delight then let out a low moan as his mouth lowered to her neck. She loved it when he did that. His mouth found its way, with harsh, nipping kisses, to her right breast. There he lingered.

---

Loki watched the carnal scene with a mix of morbid fascination and revulsion. This thing should come with a parental advisory, he thought to himself as he stared into the red sphere on his desk.

Then his own form came into focus, or nearly so, in the background. Loki watched himself watching them from Buffy's bedroom doorway as the scene went from parental advisory to outright pornographic.

"Oh, come on," Loki gestured at the sphere, "I'm not that perverse! Just shoot him already!"

Almost obediently, the Loki in Buffy's bedroom raised his crossbow, letting the wooden bolt fly.

Buffy's groans of ecstasy were transformed into screams of shock and anger. Her lover's body fell against her damp skin as ashes, his face imprinted behind her eyes as one of surprise and desperate regret — a skull — and then dust. The wooden bolt fell between her legs from where it had pierced Spike's upright chest.

---

What If: 11 January, 2002, Los Angeles

Loki ran. The slayer and the witches were after him now, and the Watcher and the welder and his demon wife were not far behind. This was too much. He could handle one witch. And he could definitively handle the slayer, but not two pissed off witches _and_ the super pissed off slayer. Two witches to use up his power and the slayer to kick his ass to Tibet and back. Not to mention the Watcher and demon pointing out all his weaknesses and likely tricks. Even teleportation was getting him nowhere. The red haired witch was too powerful now to be eluded. There was no chance of getting his hands on the sister now, on the Key.

Loki pounded down the pavement, trying desperately to get out of range of the magical damping field that was keeping him from teleporting. But the witches seemed to have infinite stamina. He dashed sideways into an alley and calmed his breathing as they searched for him along the dark street.

His heart pounded. How could they have loved that... that soulless thing so much? Didn't they know him? How could he serve anything without fangs? How could he love anything but blood—?

The hand flashed around the corner of the brick wall and took him by the throat. Loki snapped his fingers and his skin became unbearably hot to the touch. The iron grip was undaunted. The fingers closed as the owner round the corner, her green eyes burning into him with a look he remembered well. He had seen it in the reflection of many demons' eyes, looking out from his own. Pure and vivid hatred.

---

Loki shook his head with some resignation and placed a tired hand across the face of the sphere. He didn't need to see his own death predicted by a glowing volley ball. He had that much prediction power at least. It was just as Whistler had said it would be. Turn for turn, Spike was inaccessible.

"Well, Wilson, my friend," Loki caressed the now featureless cloudy red ball, "it looks like we're going to have to get our hands dirty." He laid down his pen on the pad of paper covered with scribbled notes. He grabbed a dark jacket, as it might turn chilly —really, who could predict the weather? — and slid it over his white silk shirt. He headed for the door. "Hold my calls," he advised the sphere with a serious face. "I've got a distraction to engineer."

---

Twenty Seven

20 September, 2001, Los Angeles

Alexius stiffened. His prey was near. He could taste it in the air. Both finely tuned instinct and divine revelation pointed to this place. But his prey was cleverer than Alex had anticipated. Cloaked now in the guise of someone who was untouchable, the demon soul-trader had found the perfect place to hide. A place Alex knew he could not bring himself to enter. Logan, the ungodly, would have to either go in, and drive the demon out, or else do the actual killing himself.

Alexius V crossed himself as he moved away from the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. He pulled the bill of his cap lower on his forehead to conceal the mark then stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets.

The knight incognito gave less than a glance to the demon that passed him as he trudged away. There was no cause to give more than a glance: this demon was neither the soul-trader of interest, nor even recognizable as a demon at all. The second demon merely touched the brim of his fedora as the knight passed him by.

---

1 October, 2001, 12 miles East of Los Angeles

It was hot for a full chain mail hauberk but the breeze was nice and evening was coming. Alexius patted the horse's neck, stroking the beast upon which he sat.

"Easy Micheal," the knight said gently, taking a firmer grip on the reins. The horse side stepped nervously. It seemed to know what was coming. Alexius turned his head as footsteps approached from behind.

"Michael as in the Archangel Michael?" Loki stood beside the horse and his rider, staring out at the wilderness before them. "Did I ever tell you how I met him?"

"No. Michael the First, Cerularius – Patriarch of Constantinople." The knight kept his eyes ahead, scanning the horizon… the clouds above it.

"…When the Pope in Rome excommunicated you," Loki nodded.

"And we him," Alexius smiled. "So began the Great Schism."

"So you have no love for Rome," Loki raised an eyebrow, "but you refuse to enter a Catholic Church to kill a demon?"

"I do," Alexius agreed. He was silent for a long moment as the sun began to set over the California skyline.

"And now that he knows you're after him, he's sent something after you…" Loki's eyes searched the horizon among the bloodying clouds until he found what he was searching for. "A dragon."

"A dragon," Alexius nodded. The knight ran his fingers through his thick dark hair, revealing the mark which spread across his forehead. He ground his teeth and lifted the helmet from his lap. The aventail fell back across his shoulders and down his neck with the clink of mail. The spire atop his helmet stabbed proudly into the sky. Today he wore no cloak, no cross or white garb. Michael too wore no white today, only mail hanging from his great shoulders. A great metal beast they were together which now reared at the sight before them.

Alexius drew his sword with the ringing of metal. He took the reins and spurred Michael mercilessly. The horse charged forward down the ridge with a great cloud of dust.

The thundering of hooves made the small stones jump around Loki as the conjurer watched the knight of Byzantium charge off to do battle. The sun let its last rays color the countryside and the trail of dust headed by the charging metal cavalier.

With a thundering bellow, the dragon let loose a torrent of fire which seemed to paint the ground with ashes. Loki cocked his head. The conjurer had the demon – knew its location: the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. Now the knight was just an accessory.

Alexius shouted a well worn battle cry as the flying beast swooped low with a nearly deafening rush of air. Dust exploded from the ground with each thunderous beat of the creature's wings.

The knight made a decisive swing of his sword as the jaws made a snap for him. But the beast glided out of the way as its snaking body hung weightlessly in the air between vast leathery wings. With a screech, it alighted on the tips of its wings, its forelimbs reaching for the mounted knight, talons splayed for the kill.

Loki squinted at the sight. With a wince as he surrendered to his pity, the conjurer pointed his finger to the distant duel and watched as the dragon shrieked as it took to the air again, suddenly overcome with pain at the proximity to the knight.

Alexius howled a laugh as the dragon dove up into the sky. He swung his sword again above his head, his head craned back, searching the sky for it. With a grinding roar it circled in the air and folded its wings back, speeding back towards the knight like a torpedo.

The knight reared his horse, guiding it around to face the oncoming monster. With a sharp cry he charged forward towards it, his sword raised high. The dragon beat its wings back as if it was swimming, now gliding just above the ground in a tunnel of dust, moving like a locomotive.

With a shriek from either the knight or the dragon, the two met in a rush of wind and grit. The steel on fangs flashed as the jaws twisted and snapped at the mail clad warrior. Alexius was thrown from his horse and landed in a cloud of stinging dust with a painful thud. He saw from his vantage point on the ground that the dragon had snared Michael. It coiled its body around the metal clad horse, its talons ringing across the chain mail coat.

With a growl of anger, Alexius rolled onto his knees, standing up in his heavy armor, looking around him for his sword. When he looked back to the dragon, it had lowered its wide jaws to Michael's tossing head. The horse made a panicked sound as the teeth closed around it with a snap.

With a shout of rage, the knight charged towards the dragon on foot, drawing from his belt a small dagger. His armored boots tore into the dusty ground with each step. The beast watched him come, opened its bloodied mouth and let out another deafening roar as the knight charged straight for it.

Loki could see the action from his place on the ridge. He watched as the dragon reared its head, sucking in a deep breath, preparing to roast the approaching knight in a fiery blaze. Trying again and failing to resist his pity, Loki pointed to the dragon with a stiff finger. As the great serpent exhaled towards the knight, instead of its breath bursting with fiery death, its wings instead erupted into sizzling flames. It bellowed in agony as the leathery flesh between the spines and ribs of those broad limbs were scorched and melted away. It frantically uncoiled from the horse and flopped about on the tips of what remained of its ruined wings. A fume of burnt flesh followed the beasts gaze as it finally locked its sight on the conjurer on the ridge. It growled.

Alexius cried out in spite as the dragon turned its attention away from him, looking back now at the far away man in the white silk shirt. With aching legs, he vaulted over the body of Michael and landed with his fisted dagger deep into the dragon's side. It screeched and twisted back around to the knight. With a vicious lash of its tail it sent the knight sprawling backwards into the decapitated body of his horse. With no further thought to the Byzantine warrior, the dragon scrambled quickly on its forelimbs and the scorched remains of its wingtips across the dusty ground to the form on the ridge. It snapped its jaws, threateningly.

Alexius howled, pulling his helmet from his sweaty brow. "Don't turn your back on me!" But the creature ignored him, scrabbling through the shadows of dusk towards the figure in white. The knight, too exhausted to pursue the rapidly moving thing, turned back to the ruin of his warhorse and the weapons still lashed there.

Loki watched as the dragon began to charge awkwardly towards him, its weight almost bringing it down each time it rested on the spines of its flightless wings. But it seemed to ignore the obvious pain it was in as it gained speed, nearly galloping now, its jaws opening wide.

Loki, though, remained calm. He waited with silent faith in his armored comrade, now left behind in the dust. With a roar like grinding metal, the dragon lifted its head up, ready to launch itself down onto the conjurer. The roar was cut into a whimper, however, and the beast's face lost all expression. It exhaled suddenly a putrid breath, stumbled mid stride and collapsed dead, mere feet before the conjurer, a crossbow quarrel protruding from the base of its neck.

Loki looked over the fresh corpse to the small form of Alexius a ways away, lifting the crossbow above his head in victory. The conjurer waved his arm in response. A moment later, the sound of the knight's victory cry could be heard over the ridge.

---

7 October, 2001, Chamdo, Tibet

Loki wasn't sure how he knew —he hadn't consulted the Now Sphere in his duffle bag,— but somehow he knew where to find him.

The conjurer tossed his duffle bag into the sand and sat down next to it. Next to the demon. Somehow, the demon had managed to secure a hotdog in this little city. Whistler munched on it now without saying a word. They both looked out into the muddy Mekong.

"Did you find what you were looking for in the New World?" the demon asked at last, crumpling up his napkin, as he always did, and stuffing it into his pocket. When Loki said nothing, Whistler continued. "You know, they say you can tell a lot about a man by where he takes his vacations."

Logan looked down from the river to gaze carelessly at his hands. "Is that so?"

"Yeah. See, some guys'll take the crew to Hawaii. Others— take em to Paris or Rome. Some guys'll find a nice big river —right close to where they live— and just kayak the hell out of it."

Logan nodded thoughtfully. "Somehow, I can't picture you in a kayak." He shook his head once, never looking at the man beside him.

Whistler took a breath and slowly let it out. "I'm the fourth kind of guy," he said easily. To Logan's inquiring look he elaborated. "I'm too busy to take a vacation. Maybe next year."

"So which kind am I?" Logan drove the conversation to its logical conclusion. He had nothing riding on the answer; he gave very little heed anymore to this demon's advice. Somehow it seemed as though Destiny was content to let Loki be… let him work his schemes.

Whistler thought about this carefully, appearing to consider the clouds at the horizon. "You're the guy," he began thoughtfully, "who wastes all his vacation time trying to hunt down regretfully useful vampires, then complains that he's never seen a sunrise; never gotten a tan; never had ice cream and his life's the Great Tragedy."

"I've had ice cream," Logan answered evenly. "Back in the summer of eighty seven." The image was vague, he knew it, somehow, he needed to prove it to himself. "It was butterscotch ripple... and it dripped." That part of him— that person, was slipping away, the memories feeling distinctly borrowed; as if they belonged to someone else altogether. Someone he felt guilty associating with.

"That wasn't you, Loki," Whistler confirmed, "that was Logan Kilpatrick, husband and father, son and brother, friend of a slayer."

"Stranger to demons," Loki said calmly, his implication clear.

"True, true," Whistler agreed with a small nod.

"And then I met you—" Loki raised an eyebrow, leaned back in the sand and supported himself on his elbows, "—and it all went down hill from there."

"There is no downhill," Whistler replied casually, "there is no _up_ hill." He sighed and went on. "There is no top of the hill or bottom of the hill. In fact, the hill itself is strangely absent. There's just what happens to you and what you make of it. And sometimes— there's just you."

"Are you're denying that there's anything bigger going on?" Loki demanded, rising from his elbows to glare at his 'friend.' "You'd deny that the Powers That Be have designed all of this —planned my every loss, my every kill— to suit their own ends?"

"I don't deny," the demon shrugged, "I only make suggestions. I suggest they planned it to suit the end," Whistler said softly. "And it's not a plan you or I could even try to comprehend in its completeness and still remain sane." He paused and relaxed his tone again. "I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you're somewhat more familiar, now, with Destiny."

"You mean, Destiny: the ultimate choice among so many possible futures, or Destiny: that thing which finds newer and better ways to fuck me over, every second Tuesday of the month?"

"I was thinking," Whistler answered amicably, "Destiny: the only one among us who doesn't blink."

"Yeah. I know her," Loki answered sinking back onto his elbows.

"Well, she has this old highschool sweetheart," Whistler began, catching Loki off guard, "called Prophecy."

The conjurer was at first shaken, wondering what else there might be that had been working against him. Then he softened. "I'm not in prophecies," he answered mildly. "One of the perks of being a specter."

Whistler almost bit his lip. There was again a moment when he would have spoken — should have spoken, but didn't. "Oh course," was all he said.

They sat for a long while, the Mekong ambling past, carrying away things that entered their minds; letting possible futures dissolve.

Finally, as the wind picked up and Whistler noticed Loki hugging his jacket tighter, he stood. "Well, kid," he said easily, as if their perpetual argument was done, "what do you say we take a stroll down memory lane?"

---

Twenty Eight

9 October, 2001, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

The monastery was exactly as Loki had left it, except that the monks there were in more advanced stages of decay. Most had been picked clean by the numerous small scavengers who had taken up residence.

Loki and Whistler materialized at the top of the high flight of steps, beneath the oriental style overhang. The great doors leading into the monastery were still lying open at crooked angles, the wood splintered and cracked, and now slightly rotten, from Glory's invasion more than a year ago.

Whistler followed Loki, a few steps behind. It was a grim sight. Loki had never seen a vulture up close before, and he nearly didn't see the one which had made a nest among the scattered bones, until it rose from the dusty corpses like some dark, terrible phoenix.

Loki made a small cry of surprise and the great beating of the wings was his answer as the scavenger broke for the doorway behind them and disappeared into the daylight.

The startled specter held a hand to his chest to calm his breathing. It was times like these that he missed the Littlest Dagon Sphere – the tiny meditative ball he had left where he was sure it would interfere no more in his free will. The sight of the inside of the hall was anything but calming. A full fourteen months of decomposition, open to mice and rats, beetles and maggots, birds of prey as well as the variety of snakes which lived in these mountains, had left little more than a scattering of sinew-covered bones and moldering fabrics. Spider webs rounded off every corner of the room —some neat and thin; sill in use by their makers— others thick and dust filled, like sheets of old silk; tattered and frayed.

The beams of sunlight that entered the room through the many slitted windows caught the lazily floating motes of dust that were disturbed by a gentle breeze or the beating of the bird's wings.

Dark and dusty, empty skulls looked up at the pair as they passed. The smell was bearable now, the odors of death diluted with time and mixed with the other scents of feces and fungi. Loki wasn't sure, but the empty eyes seemed to be glaring at them. Either at Whistler –the booking agent of their fate– or at Loki –the creature who had left them to it.

Loki made his way down the far corridor into the small gathering room leading to the rock garden. The were fewer bodies here than near the main entrance. A gentle breeze was wafting through the great archway that opened onto the terrace. Loki stopped under the arch and Whistler joined him. The sight was infinitely divergent from that of a year and a half ago.

There was no tranquil girl brushing her hand through the pool. There were no tiny birds buzzing from this flower to that. The garden had gone wild. Weeds had sprung up between every rock and pebble, choking off the delicate, transplanted flora. The small tree near the center of the garden was gnarled and its leaves were brown. The fountain had ceased to discharge water.

At first, the fountain interested the conjurer. An artesian well, he knew, released water due to the potentiometric pressure of the aquifer into which it was tapped. There should be nothing to cause it to cease flowing. Then, as he stepped into the garden, his feet squelching through the swampy surface covering the flagstones, he realized the well was still flowing — just not from the stone fountain. The vines that had begun to dismantle the fountain's surface concealed the great crack in the stone, from which slime now flowed. Algae and moss covered the surface of the reflecting pool and none of the fish could be seen.

Loki swallowed and made his way out of the overgrown garden to where Whistler was still waiting for him under the archway. Now the demon led the way as they passed into the dark passageways, lined with closed doors.

Loki recognized the stair they descended in the darkness as the one leading to the chamber of the Key. He nearly stumbled when, in the darkness, they reached the bottom of the stair. With a brilliant flash of light, Whistler struck a match and set fire to the torch that still rested in its bracket on the wall.

"This is where it started," Whistler said calmly, pushing open the door. "And where it ended." Loki followed.

It was only as he crossed the threshold that the impact of the stench struck him. With no ventilation, no abundance of rats or vultures, the corpses this deep in the bowels of the monastery had not decayed like the ones above.

With flesh still clinging to bone, cloth to flesh and blood to cloth, the bodies here were very much as they had died; hideous.

Loki's throat clenched tight, his breath freezing in his lungs to prevent him from vomiting on the spot. In front of him, just as he had left it, the face of Haargan stared back at him. The conjurer now very much regretted not either cleaning away the bodies or setting fire to the whole place, the last time he was here.

The specter turned away, heading for the door and fresher air, when the demon caught his arm. "Look at them," Whistler commanded, his tone harsh and unforgiving. Roughly, he twisted Loki around to face the monk's head again. In the torchlight, his dried, rotting face was set in a twitching leer.

"You could have been among them," the demon continued, his endearing accent fading. "You could have been so concerned with them, with the Key, that you'd stayed, and been among them."

"But I wasn't," the specter retorted angrily. He now had to draw the foul air into his lungs where it burned away like acidic smoke. "I never am. All these massacres, all this death —it's never me." He found here, in these simple words, the release for the rage that all the demon killing of a quarter century couldn't purge. "The monks here," Loki went on, his voice cold and hard, "they taught me to deal with it – survivor guilt. To deal with being the one left behind. They said, for any emotion that follows you – which you can't get rid of: 'Give it a name, call it friend.' So I did." He wrested his arm from Whistler's grip and in two strides found himself by the stone pedestal, displaying something rather more gruesome than a clay pot. Loki, without thinking, angrily seized Haargan's head by the hair.

"This is what I am!" He declared, his deep rooted anger venting fully and wholeheartedly. "'Give it a name.' I call it Loki," the conjurer spat, shaking the disembodied head. "Loki– who gets to enjoy shit like this all his life!" He hurled the head as hard as he could against the far wall, where it crunched and rolled to a corpse on the floor.

"Destiny wouldn't have me killed – no, that would be too easy!" Loki swatted the hanging lamp and it swung in a creaking arc. "Destiny wouldn't have me kill Spike – of course not! He's a rat-bastard who deserves to die a hundred times over – so obviously he lives." There was the greatest variety of hatred, resentment, bitterness and cynicism in the conjurer's voice as he glared maliciously at the demon holding the torch.

"Loki, I call it, and yes, it's a friend. It's Mr. Hyde, it's Captain Ahab, it's all corrupt thought put together. It knows exactly what I want and it knows exactly how Destiny will keep it from me." Loki paced the chamber, stepped indifferently over the broken bodies. "It's Logan, not Loki, who cares about the Key — cares about his soul and redemption. Loki knows there nothing left to redeem — knows its only purpose is vengeance." Loki closed his fist and slammed it down on the stone pedestal. "Yes it's a friend. My only friend. It's me—" he spread his arms to encompass the room and all its grizzly contents, "—And I'm this."

"You are," Whistler began slowly, his tone soft but unsympathetic, "what you choose. You are your struggle." He took a step back, over the threshold of the door. "And you are in vain." The demon turned and left, leaving Loki to himself in the darkness.

---

Twenty Nine

16 October, 2001, Sunnydale

"Gentlemen," Warren stood, his back to the other two, "prepare yourselves, if possible, to be stunned and awed..." He turned around to face Jonathan and Andrew who sat in Warren's basement before him. He held it by the edges of its thick plastic case. "Mint condition, original edition, platinum series... Luke Skywalker." The shiny, holographic edges of the trading card glittered in the sunlight penetrating the basement's high windows.

The other two were speechless for a moment. "C- can I touch it?" Andrew asked tentatively, holding out a hand.

Warren immediately pulled the card out of reach. "Hey, this thing cost, like, three month's salary." There was a pause as he seemed to consider the advantages of touching it himself. "Okay," he said at last, "but wear gloves," he tossed a pair of latex gloves to the young man.

As Andrew caught them, the phone rang. Jonathan jumped up and leaned over as it rang again. "Long distance," he commented, almost under his breath.

"Let the computer trace it," Warren advised, setting the card back in its case, to Andrew's disappointment.

"Hello?" Jonathan said, holding the receiver to his ear. The computer beside the phone immediately began to track down the origin of the call.

"Hello, boys," said the voice on the other end.

Jonathan frowned as the small spinning globe on the computer screen shifted and slowed over Asia. He pressed a key on the telephone and then hung up the receiver. "You're on speaker," Jonathan acknowledged.

"Thank you," said the voice, gentle but slightly husky. "This is the lair of the organization known as the Trio, is it not?"

Andrew gave Warren a quick glance. "Of course," Warren said irritated. He frowned as the computer enlarged a section of southern China, cross-hairs searching over the Tibetan plateau.

"Excellent," Loki said, pleased. "As you're probably aware," he said, gazing into his Now Sphere, "I am calling you from quite a ways overseas, and this phone call is costing a — a Jedi's ransom, so I'll make this short." Despite his claims for ridiculous rates, Loki paused for a long moment. "I hear you three are sporting for some fun. Some real fun."

Warren glanced at the whiteboard, upon which had been scrawled the recently revised list of mission goals. He frowned. It has seemed like enough fun—

"Believe me," Loki said, as though reading his mind, "I'm suggesting something seriously more rewarding than a shrink-ray." This evoked a surprised and worried look from the other two. Warren, however, remained more irritated than anything.

"Who are you?" The young man asked, stepping closer to the phone.

"A very powerful conjurer," Loki said, amused, assuming his best authoritative tone. "And I find I have use for some seriously evil super-villains."

"Hold please," Jonathan pressed another key and silenced the audio on the speaker phone. He turned to the others with a frown. "Hey guys, I think this is for real."

"Of course it's for real," Warren swatted him annoyed on the shoulder. "Nobody knows my mom's phone number _and_ that we're super-villains. He must be a conjurer."

"But–" Jonathan rubbed his arm, "he wants an _evil_ trio of villains."

Andrew scoffed. "I think that's implied by _villains_."

"Andrew's right," Warren nodded. "Evil's a tool, like the Death Star, and if it falls into the right hands, we can make it do whatever we want."

Andrew's eyes lit up. "Can you imagine if the Rebellion got its hands on the Death Star?" He and Jonathan shared a mischievous laugh when the phone, which was supposed to have been muted, spoke up.

"Listen, boys," Loki said as Jonathan rushed to the phone. The cross-hairs had focused on a small mountain chain west of Chamdo. To emphasize his power, Loki turned their computer off before it could isolate his exact coordinates. "I'm in need of some serious havoc in Sunnydale. I've got a problem and I need you to create a distraction so I can solve it. That's not too big a job for you — is it?"

Jonathan swallowed and turned back to the other two. Andrew shrugged but Warren smiled. "Havoc is our specialty. We run this town."

"Excellent," Loki said again. Already the likely futures as seen through the Dagon Sphere were shifting. Buffy was becoming more distant, more troubled. Spike was more violent and bitter at her rejections. She wouldn't mind so much now if—

"Hold on," Warren approached the phone, crossing his arms. "What do we get out of it?

The other two nodded in agreement. "Yeah," they said in unison.

"Boys," the conjurer said gently, tapping the red sphere, satisfied with his small interference, "I have more power than you could possibly imagine. The question isn't 'what can I pay you.' The question is 'what do you want, more than anything in the world?'" He waited, already having foreseen their response.

Jonathan had no sooner keyed the phone when the three answered in unison, "Chicks." They all nodded in agreement.

Jonathan activated the phone's receiver again and Warren spoke up. "We will consider your offer," he said, hiding the excitement he and the others felt.

"Perfect," said the voice. The computer screen blinked on with a picture of a demon and a summoning spell beneath. The three gathered around to look at it. "I have taken the liberty," the voice went on, "of preparing a suitable chaos demon."

"I think we can summon our own demons," Andrew said petulantly. "We are evil, you know."

"Of course," Loki said, "I apologize for the presumption."

"You'll have your havoc," Warren eyed Andrew, "just be sure to pay us when we're finished. Remember — whatever we want."

There was a short pause. "Of course, Warren," the young man did a double take, "everything you've worked for will pay off." Then with an audible click, the connection was terminated.

Andrew and Jonathan looked to each other triumphantly. "Chicks, chicks, chicks," they said together. Warren remained silent for a moment.

Finally he turned to the other two. "You heard him; start summoning that Mm'demon thing."

---

Loki ran a hand through his shoulder length hair. He finally let the smile spread across his face. He reached out and stroked the red cloudy ball. The opportunity was quite a ways off —and there were preparations to make— but the single clear image shown by the Dagon Sphere was that of Loki watching, rapt, as the slayer dusted William the Bloody, after the vampire had tried to force himself on her.

Loki's smile widened. I could stand to see that, he thought, I could let a slayer have my revenge. The revenge, he realized, did not belong to him alone, but to the slayer also. It was part of her heritage —something passed from generation to generation— the right to dust this vampire who had killed so many. So many slayers.

Loki paused, momentarily. How many other slayers had Spike killed? Niki had killed her Watcher and the Council had abandoned her when she started ignoring their directives, so there were no Council records indicating that Spike had been her killer – and Logan had made sure, for his own protection, that Spike himself didn't remember that day. Not that it seemed all that clear anyway. How many others were there that he might not recall? A good hex to the brain on the subway had jumbled Spike's memory for ten years; what else might he not remember that earned him death?

Loki noticed the smile had fallen from his face. He stood from the table he had acquired and paced the stone chamber he used for a study. Once he had cleaned away the bodies —most of them— he had been able to convince several prelates and Buddhist monks to return to the lamasery. Even the garden was starting to look better.

Loki paused from his pacing as there came a knock to his door. He frowned and opened it. A young red haired man smiled back.

---

Thirty

16 October, 2001, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Oz kept his smile steady, though he was anything but prepared to see his old meditation instructor again. Loki, he saw, was quite different from the last time Oz had seen him. He was far older in the eyes and his shoulders hunched noticeably. His normally short, wavy blond hair was long and uncombed, hanging about his shoulders. He wore a shirt that would make Renaissance maestros nervous and even Oz could tell his three kaya were not centered.

"Hi," he said tentatively, unsure of the proper way to address someone of Loki's status— whatever that status might be, "Master Loki," he added. There was an awkward pause while Oz guessed Loki was trying to remember him. "I studied with you a few years ago," he said casually, trying not to make it sound as though he knew Loki didn't recognize him. "I've managed to master my kaya of transfor-"

"Of course!" Loki broke into a broad smile. "The curse of the werewolf is lifted, is it?" He reached out jovially and gave the young man a rough but friendly pat on the shoulder. "Fantastic. I knew you could do it."

Oz's smile faltered. He had not expected this much enthusiasm. Certainly, this man had not been so... extroverted a year and a half ago. That and the fact that Loki was still standing inside the study, effectively blocking the doorway, kept Oz from being entirely surprised by what happened next.

"Well, I'm glad you patched things together, and you're absolutely welcome to stay here in the lamasery as long as you like. One of the monks will see that you are provided for. Meals are at sunrise and sunset. Well, you must be tired— looks as though you are. See you tomorrow!" And the door slammed solidly in Oz's face.

Oz blinked away the surprise of the door in his face. He made a small smile, then off to the side of the doorway, a hand squeezed his. The smile was replaced with a look of resolve and he took his fist and pounded on the door.

There was a long pause, during which Oz expected Loki was hoping he would go away, then Oz pounded again, calling, "Master Loki, I've come a long way for your help. Please open the door." He was answered by silence. He banged again, more urgently. "Please, Master Loki, we really need your help. We can pay you–"

The door opened as suddenly as it had closed. "_We_?" The specter stuck his head and shoulders out into the hall to see a young brunette standing beside Oz, their hands linked. "You didn't say there was a _we_," his eyes were fixed with the young woman's. She had short brown hair held back with two hair clips. She was slightly shorter than Oz and looked to be in her mid twenties. She was also quite endearingly nervous. Her eyes kept darting between Oz and Loki as the latter smiled enchantingly at her.

Oz wasn't sure if there was anything else 'enchanting' about Loki at that moment, but he was sure he didn't like the way the conjurer was looking at her. "This is Jade," he said, squeezing her hand.

Jade made a small smile and tried to make an uncertain bow, but Loki took her hand firmly from Oz's grip and shook it warmly. "Welcome to my lamasery."

"_Your_ lamasery?" Oz frowned. "Where is Master Haargan?"

Loki's grin never faltered, his eyes fixed on Jade. "Oh... here and there."

Loki led the pair into his study. There was not much to see: a simple cot, like the ones found in every room – but this one was not used for sleep. This was his study and the cot was piled with books. A table and chair rested against the wall by the single slitted window, the table covered in papers and open books, a single telephone and a glowing red sphere.

"This is Wilson," Loki indicated the Dagon Sphere. "He can tell the future."

Jade slowly turned to Oz, to see him looking back. "I see..." Oz said at last.

Loki began transferring stacks of books from the cot to the floor beside it. When he was finished, he offered it to them to sit on. He himself turned the chair around and straddled it. "So, what exactly do you need my help with?" He pointed at Jade – interrupting any response. "Is she all..." he put hooked fingers to his temples and scowled. "Grrrr," like a lycanthrope.

Oz shook his head. "No," he looked at her, their eyes meeting and the connection forming. "Her father was a demon – a specter, so she was born without a soul." Oz swallowed, as if the injustice of it were difficult to bear. "She just found out."

Loki found his smile had disappeared as Oz and Jade looked at each other. "A rather nasty surprise, I imagine." The conjurer sighed, as if to clear away the memory of his own discovery that nothing born of a specter can be more than a specter itself.

"I was wondering," Jade spoke for the first time, "if you could explain to me how... uh – why I wasn't born with a soul."

"You want the birds and the bees, do you?" Loki's grin reappeared. "Well, when a demon loves a woman, or a man for that matter, and assuming the demon has abandoned all his or her evil, demonic ways, they can settle down and have a relatively normal human life together, at least on the surface." Jade was watching the conjurer intently, while Oz retained a bit more suspicion.

"You see," Loki continued happily, "a soul is a distinctly human thing, demons don't have them — don't need them — not even good demons." A sudden epiphany sparked in Loki's mind and he stopped. Quickly he buried the thought and continued. "Many people think of the soul as some sort of thing; that if they can just get their hands on it, everything will be fine. But a soul isn't a thing, any more than consciousness is a thing. But nobody ever finds it strange that you can lose consciousness and then get it back again without ever looking for it." He turned and began lifting corners of books on the table. "The soul is kind of like consciousness, except while consciousness is being aware of your surroundings, the soul is an unconscious awareness of yourself. One that you might not know you have—" he looked up from the table, his hand on a book "—or don't have." He pulled the book free from the mess of papers and balanced it on the back of the chair before him.

"But where consciousness is given to just about every life form, good or evil, the soul–" the conjurer continued, "-is a bit more elusive. The soul is the container of your innocence. It is the clay that your morality is made out of. Certain great acts of evil are simply not possible with the presence of a full, hearty soul. Creatures of evil, therefore, or just… questionable nature," he made a small smile, "don't need one — can't use one. And unfortunately for you," he eyed Jade again, "that would include your father."

"But your daughter had a soul," Oz protested, shifting on the cot to sit closer to Jade, whose hand was clasping his.

Loki was at first caught off guard. "Yes—" his matter-of-fact tone had disappeared, but then just as quickly reappeared. "Yes, she had a soul. I didn't become a specter until after she was born– after she died, in fact." His voice took on a distant, sad air as he said the last, but then his eyes refocused and he looked to Jade.

"You see, the soul-" his tone was as chipper as before, "-in life- is sort of a function of the body." His eyes glanced down at the book, then quickly up, "but not in the same way that, say, flatulence is a function of the body."

Oz and Jade gave each other another look, as if to say is this quack for real?

"And while I expect consciousness is passed, like male pattern baldness, from parent to child —usually with no exceptions— a soul is only formed in an unborn child if there are two souls to parent it, that is — if the DNA from both parents allows for the creation of an organism that can have a soul." He looked with some trace of sympathy at Jade. "And you being part demon means a soul was not in your genes, so to speak." He held up a finger before quickly adding, "Not that you can't have one — it just wasn't in the original blueprints." He let that settle in. "And of course," he said, as if it were an afterthought, "things conjured using magic tend to have much simpler blueprints –more like demons– which allows them to be useful in all sorts of ways, as specters."

"What about clones?" Oz asked, his classic worry-face creasing his brow.

"Clones?" Loki asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah," Oz went on, "people created in a lab –without magic– but with only one parent. Are they specters?"

Loki took a deep breath. "Clones, eh? Interesting concept. As I think about it, it seems to me that even if you only had one parent – donor, whatever you want to call it – as long as that person had a soul, you'd be good to go." He paused. "Except," he seemed to think hard, "except that your soul would have the potential to be identical to your donor's, just like your DNA. So you'd really just be sharing a soul." He sighed. "Worth further study, anyway."

There was a long pause, during which everyone seemed puzzled equally. Finally, Loki stood, with a slap of his knees. "Well, I suppose you've come to me to get your soul back– er, get a soul in the first place, then eh?" He sighed, making a small shake of his head. "Well, I have to warn you; the last girl who came to me for help... well, it didn't end pretty."

"Did she get her soul?" Jade asked, almost defiantly.

"She did," Loki cocked his head, "though I doubt it did her much good."

"Will you help us?" Oz demanded, his tone wavering with desperation and concern.

"Of course," Loki said with an odd smile. "It's what I do." His eyes moved over to Jade who shifted uncomfortably under his moving gaze.

---

Thirty One

1 November, 2001, Los Angeles

Alexius lifted the 'cell phone' contraption to his ear and listened. He heard the voice of what he recognized as the automated answering device. "My lord wizard," he whispered urgently into the phone, "I pray that this message reaches you in time." His eyes shifted about the parking lot, lit only by the street lamps around the perimeter. "I believe my cover has been compromised. I have had to abandon my routine observation of the target as I am now being pursued by a vampire." The knight winced. "Obviously it is no ordinary vampire or I would not be so inclined to bother you—"

"There he is!" A voice shouted from behind. Footfalls pounded through the parking lot towards him. There were four of them, led by the vampire, with the soul-trader bringing up the rear.

Alexius shouted menacingly and dropped the cell phone, drawing his sword in a flash. Three of the four slowed their charge, dropping back as the leader continued, increasing his speed to a dead run.

Alex reached for the helmet and drew it over his dark hair, setting his jaw for the fight. He was on foot, unfortunately, and had been ever since the death of brave Michael. He was more than a match for any ordinary vampire, even on foot; easily striking off its head, but he saw now why this vampire did not relent. He carried a sword of his own.

Alexius V, knight and protector of Byzantium, servant of the Lord God, raised his sword high above his head, widened his stance for balance and roared in battle-born rage.

The vampire, as he charged the enraged crusader, easily tossed his sword lengthwise in front of his, catching it now by the blade. As he drew near and the knight made a step forward to lunge, putting all force into his blow, the vampire deftly reached out with his sword and smashed the hilt into the helmet's nose guard, jarring the startled knight's face with tremendous force and shattering his nasal bone.

Blood poured from Alexius' face as, with a great whoosh, he turned his downward blow into a circular slash. The vampire, however, was already behind him and smashed the knight over the back of the head with the shank of his short sword. Then his heel drove into the knight's thickly armored legs, driving his knees out from under him.

With a clang, Alexius let fall his sword and collapsed to the pavement, his chain mail clinking noisily. Alexius looked up through bleary eyes as the four gathered around above him, looking down at him. He clenched his teeth and bore the throbbing of his face and skull. The humiliation was hardest to bare. The demon stood beside the vampire, his form a mockery to everything Alexius believed in.

"Who are you?" The vampire asked, lowering the tip of his sword to touch the knight's throat.

"A knight," Alexius spat, realizing he tasted blood in his mouth. "A knight of Byzantium." He glared at the demon who faked a look of concern. "And I will answer no more of your questions." The sword pressed harder and Alexius steeled himself for the death blow.

"Wait a minute—" one of the human men asked. His voice was accented differently from all the others Alexius had heard. "—Byzantium?" He dropped to his knees to be nearer to the bleeding knight's voice. "Are you truly a knight of the company of Byzantium, sworn to destroy the Key?"

"It–" Alexius strained against his suddenly heavy chest, "–is the will of God."

"The Key?" The vampire asked, turning to the knowledgeable man who now stood. The man whispered something in the vampire's ear and Alex saw him become much more agitated, angry even. Anger was something Alexius had never seen in this adversary. Not until now.

With a flash of pain, the sword tip tore up the knight's brow, knocking his helmet back to the asphalt. He saw the two become even more agitated when they saw his mark. The mark of Byzantium.

Alex found the sword tip pressed once again against the flesh of his throat. The vampire's eyes were narrowed. "You were one of the knights who tried to kill Dawn."

Alex strained against the crushing weight of his own chest, which he realized was being held down by the boot of the soul-trader demon. "Who?" The knight gasped in confusion.

"The Key," Angel said angrily, "the Slayer's sister." The boot crushed harder, but none of the others seemed to notice. "You nearly got them all killed."

Alexius' eyes widened. The Slayer's sister— His mind reeled as blood poured from his face and air was forced from his lungs. The will of God, he mouthed desperately.

With an angry flick of his wrist, Angel drew the sword tip across the larynx. With a wheezing, gurgling sigh, Alexius breathed his last.

The demon made the sign of the cross over the body, gently removing his boot from the knight's chest, and mumbled something in Latin. At last he turned to the vampire. "Thank you for your assistance. I feared for my life."

Angel nodded back to the demon in priest's clothing. "Don't mention it, Father Wethrin— it's what we do."

---

2 November, 2001, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Delete all? Asked his voice mail. Logan's finger touched the appropriate button. Messages deleted.

"That takes care of that," he muttered, hanging up the receiver.

"What?" Asked Jade, sitting cross-legged on the floor at the center of Loki's study.

"Nothing," Loki smiled, turning back to his newest pupil. "Concentrate."

"I am concentrating," she said, annoyed. "I don't see anything."

"You only think you're concentrating," Loki advised, squatting in front of her. "Close your eyes." She glared at him. "Close," he said sternly.

She slowly closed her eyes. Loki appraised her. Wearing the standard robes, under which he knew she still wore those little, denim shorts and that pale yellow T-shirt— too tight to be seen wearing around so many celibate men who were trying to concentrate— she looked like some pagan priestess. Though her luscious form was mostly concealed beneath the robe's many yards of thick fabric, Loki still had use of his imagination. He shook his head once. "Sorry?"

"I said, I still don't see anything," she repeated, a frown marring her lovely face. He reached out a hand to stroke her cheek, but pulled it back just in time.

Holy shit, he swore at himself, quickly standing and stepping away from her. Just what the hell do you think you're doing? Loki swallowed and shook his head to clear it of the dissident voice.

"Master Loki?" She asked, her eyes still closed, her frown deepening. Her voice was clear and angelic —no trace of roughness or strain— just gentle, innocent concern.

Loki closed his own eyes to compose himself. "Picture—" he swallowed, hard. "Picture in your mind a vast expanse of mist. This is the sunyata; the void." He opened his eyes, composed. No problem.

"I see it," she said, her frown softening. "Now what?"

"One step at a time," he said easily, casually walking closer and squatting again before her still form. "Concentrate on the void. It is everything in the universe that is empty and meaningless – everything that is not a part of you in the world."

"I don't get it," her frown reappeared. She shifted uncomfortably on the floor.

"It's okay," Loki's voice was gentle and reassuring, he placed a tender hand on her knee. "You'll get it." She made a small smile of gratitude. No problem at all.

---

Thirty Two

8 November, 2001, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Oz's fist struck it with a deep thunk. He and Jade had been here for nearly a month. He had expected to see results by now. He had been hoping to be there, with her, while she meditated. He was now no novice when it came to self control. But Loki had kept her all to himself.

Thunk, thunk, the tall cylinder swayed gently as Oz struck it repeatedly. It was a simple exercise: get the bag to the other end of the room. The bag was cylindrical –perhaps five feet from top to bottom– open at the top and filled to the brim with dried rice. It hung from three chains which linked and attached to a track on the ceiling. The bag moved ever so slightly as Oz's fists pummeled it. The room was fifty two feet long and the exercise demanded not one grain of rice be spilled from the bag. Oz was still five feet from the door.

Thunk, thunk... thunk. Sweat beaded on Oz's forehead, his breath was harsh and deep. He loved Jade. He was sure of it. Not like he had loved Willow — he was sure of that too. It was a different love. No less passionate, no less intense. He knew Jade loved him too. Thunk, he knew it. But he had been prevented from seeing her while she was on this quest of hers. Thunk. Oz recalled the way Loki had been looking at her. Thunk! Maybe coming here had been a bad idea.

In Oz's mind –the small part which always pictured the worst– he saw her sitting in the garden, on the cobbles; the same garden in which Oz had learned to control the wolf in him, but she was not controlling. She was being controlled— Thunk! Oz closed his eyes as rice rained down from above.

---

9 November, 2001, Tsingy; 150 miles West of Antananarivo, Madagascar

"Where are we now?" Jade asked, her eyes still closed. There was a cool breeze caressing her face.

"Not in Kansas anymore," Loki replied. He stood behind her, his feet planted on two parallel crests of rock, as were hers, about a meter apart. His hands clasped her thin waist to keep her from falling. "You can open your eyes now."

She did and immediately lurched — luckily she was steadied by Loki's strong hands. "Oh my... holy... damn," she uttered, amazed. "Where are we?"

Loki smiled, proudly. "The limestone forest, Madagascar. The only truly untouched place left in the world." Around them, in all directions —and beneath them stretching down to the ground, far below— a vast maze of serrated spires and naturally formed walls of rock twisted and vanished into jungle on two sides, and continued out to the horizon ahead and behind. The carbonates in the rock had dissolved in millennia of torrential rains, leaving nothing but tall, labyrinthine plates of rock, towering over the tallest trees, as an impressive barrier to civilization. "Only snails live here," Loki said quietly as she gazed out in wonder.

With a sudden start, she looked down between her feet. Then thin chasm dropped all the way to the ground, two hundred and ten feet below. Her feet shifted on the two solid edges, getting surer footing.

"Relax," he said, spreading his fingers over the material covering her stomach. She no longer wore the robes– but then, they weren't around monks who were trying to concentrate. "You won't fall," he said assuredly. Slowly, almost reluctantly, he took his hands away from her waist.

Instantly, his wrist was caught in her hand, holding him, keeping her balance. She swayed uncertainly with his support removed, but eventually let him go.

"Now what?" Her voice wavered nervously.

Loki stepped close behind her, her back resting against his chest. The wind rippled through his white silk shirt, finding his wide collar and brushing the skin of his neck and shoulders. He swallowed. "Now put your arms out." He held his own arms out, easily, with no fear of falling. All of it was committed to the sunyata. The Tsingy around them, the jungle beyond, even the lemurs that lived there. The snails that crept by on the snaking trail of rock that tore across Madagascar. They were nothing. Mist. There was himself and his arms and the directive to extend them.

Her own attempt to extend her arms was a little less certain. Finally, her bare arms stuck out to either side of her. She was now pressed quite firmly back against him. She could feel his heartbeat.

"Now jump," he said, as if it was the most logical suggestion in the world. He stepped back from her body, reluctantly relinquishing its warmth. "Jump," he said again.

---

Oz drew the arrow back in the bow. His muscles already screamed for relief. He had been training in all the arts the monastery had to offer. None for the purpose of finding inner strength or sharpening his willpower — not for any of the reasons the exercises existed. He trained to build his muscles, his reflexes, his endurance. He had been training for weeks.

His elbow pointed straight back, his fingers just brushing the corner of his mouth. A bead of perspiration found its way down the side of his face. His red hair glistened in the cool light of the afternoon, thick with sweat.

The minutes crept by. The tip of the arrow began to quiver in the sixty five pound bow. As time ticked by, it became harder and harder to gently relax the string, his muscles seizing. The goal of this exercise was simply not to hit the target. The archer ground his teeth with exertion.

Though his jaw was furiously tight, his breathing was calm. His fingertips burned as the bowstring gripped them tight, the nock squeezed between his index and middle fingers.

The target was the entire far wall. Instead of stone, the far wall was glass: a floor to ceiling, wall to wall window of stained glass. Oz's eyes focused on a tiny point of silver among all the different colors. The window was a chaotic jumble of wedge shaped pieces –most likely pieced together from the last unsuccessful trainer to use this room. The pieces were held together with silver solder, a spider web of thin threads joining the shards together.

The minutes dragged on. Sweat washed over Oz's eyes, collecting on his lashes. The arrowhead virtually rattled in the bow as his hands trembled ever so slightly from the effort.

---

"Jump," he said again, as Jade stood before him, her back turned, her arms outstretched. She trembled as the wind strengthened, but did not move.

"Jump," he ordered. "Drop off the plane of yourself into the sunyata, into the void. Only there can you find the piece of you that you are missing." He stepped back, letting the wind draw the silk about him, caressing him. "Jump. For everything in the world that's worth a soul. Jump, for everything Oz cannot give you but I can." He took another step back. She looked very alone here, high atop the Tsingy. It was a surreal picture, for sure. "Jump for what you're made of," he urged, "and for what you don't have." He took a final step back into the wind, never looking back to see if there was stone to step on. The wind now made his voice almost inaudible in her ears. "Jump or be alone."

Jade was fighting back a torrent of conflicting emotions and instincts. How could he ask that of her? Her body trembled. Jump because Oz couldn't know her like Loki did? Jump or be alone? Suddenly she felt his warm hands on her, slide under her shirt, holding her waist. She wanted more than anything for it to be Oz's hands. She closed her eyes and slowly opened them, knowing the hands did not belong to Oz. She let out a trembling sob as Loki's voice was close in her ear, his breath on her cheek.

"I'll make this easy for you," he said in a low whisper. She shivered as his fingers interlaced over the smooth skin over he belly, now undeniably sensual rather than supportive. Her arms were still outstretched and frozen there. Her chest heaved as she let another terrified sob escape her. This was terrible loneliness and... and– she couldn't even describe how this conjurer made her feel. "Jump," he offered, "or don't."

She thrust herself forwards, out of his embrace, falling down the deep crack in the rock. Fluted limestone rushed past either side of her vision, darkness rushed up from below.

---

Oz exhaled. The bright sunlight of the late afternoon shone through the shattered window. His arms were like rubber. He gently set the bow against the wall and approached the pile of glass shards on the stone floor and on the stone terrace beyond, his feet crunching through it.

He looked down at the many tiny reflections of himself looking up, as he was highlighted by the setting sun, each tiny face a different color. Where was Jade?

---

Thirty Three

10 November, 2001, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Jade awoke to the sound of a pounding heart. At least that's what it sounded like. Her whole body felt deliciously warm and liquid. The sheet felt smooth and silky against her bare skin, her bare chest. She stretched out and struggled against consciousness as it found her and took her. Who said it wasn't a thing?

Her eyes shot open the instant she realized she couldn't possibly be in bed with Oz. Panic took her and for a moment she could not figure out where she was. Then she looked down at the silk she clutched over her nakedness. It was no sheet.

Loki strode into view, shirtless. "Morning, darling," he said with a small smile. The pounding on the door grew louder and more insistent. "Now who could that be at this hour?" He padded to the door and turned to look at her. "Your boyfriend, no doubt."

Jade was filled with revulsion. She had no memory of what had happened to her, or what he had done to her, but she had an active imagination. She shivered with disgust as she held the silk over herself.

"What will he say when he sees you in this condition?" Loki raised a skeptical eyebrow. For an instant, as she sat on his study's cot, terrified, he seemed to ponder this. Then with a cruel smile, his eyes lit up. "Let's find out, shall we?" He reached for the door latch.

"No!" She shouted, jumping from the bed, still clutching the shirt. Her eyes and tone were desperate and pleading. "Please don't open it."

Oz pounded on the door again. Something was going on in there, he was sure of it. His fist hurt from banging so hard, but he was determined to enter. "Jade," he called.

Jade looked frantically around the study. Oz could not know what happened. It would bring out his other side, Jade knew. She had only seen the wolf in him once, when a New York mugger had made all sorts of filthy threats to her while holding Oz at knife point.

She had been surprised, though he had already informed her of his unfortunate curse, and had in turn told him of her own ability to partially transform, thanks to her father. Needless to say, with both of them extremely afraid and angry, there hadn't been much left of the mugger by the time they had regained control of themselves.

Oz would certainly turn now. And then Loki would be forced to kill him, with little hesitation, Jade guessed. All there was in this room was books and the mess of papers and texts on the desk. And Wilson.

"Okay," Loki shrugged mildly. "I won't open it. But someone had better. The longer we wait, the more agitated old Oz'll be — Coming!" he yelled at the door, "—and eventually he's going to break it down." As the pounding continued, Loki went on. "I know it's possible; most of the doors in this building have been broken at one point or another." He stepped away from the door and sat himself down on the single chair in the room. "I'll let you open it."

Jade looked frantically around the room for her clothes, her robes —anything. There was nothing. "You sick fuck," she said desperately, trying to wrap the silk around her to cover as much as possible. It was no use. Finally she simply turned her back to him and slipped the shirt on, pulling it down past her waist as much as possible. She was not used to being naked around men. Not even Oz.

"Oh yes," Loki said with mock seriousness, "he'll believe that." Loki stood and paced before the slitted window, opposite the door, teasing her desperation. "Time's a-ticking," he said goading her. "He's probably looking for something big and hard to start battering down the door." Loki made a vicious little chuckle. "Too bad he wasn't looking last night." She gave him a hateful glare. Just then the pounding stopped. Oz had, indeed gone off to look for a battering ram.

"Now you really have two options," Loki said, sitting down again. "You can open the door when he comes back and try desperately to explain your... apparel, or you can wait until he lets himself in, then also try and explain why it was that you wanted to keep him out, hoping desperately that he doesn't do something we all might regret– him most of all. The choice is yours."

"You... sick fuck!" She said again, her eyes tearing up again.

"Hey!" His eyes widened, as if with excitement, "we're having our first lovers' quarrel!"

"You sick fuck!" she shouted, disgustedly.

"Hey, wait—" Loki turned to the table, "I think there's a thesaurus around here somewhere..."

Just then there was a deep boom as something big and heavy struck the door. After a few seconds there was another.

"And what do you think Oz would say if he knew you were using such foul language?" Loki frowned for a moment, then his eyes lit up. "Hey! Let's ask him!"

Jade threw herself against the door as Loki stood from the chair, her whole body shaking as Oz bashed the door again. "No," she begged, swallowing her dignity and letting go of the hem of the silk shirt to press her hands against the door — keeping it shut. Boom.

"Oh, come on," Loki prodded, mocking her desperation, "let wolfy boy in." A smile blossomed on his face. "We can give him the birds and the bees talk together: when a Specter loves a Specter, and they're both of consenting age—"

"Shut up!" She screamed, her face contorted in rage. "I would never do anything with you!"

Loki shrugged. "Says the chick wearing my shirt." Boom. Loki looked to the door, then his face lit up again as if the most brilliant idea had entered his mind. He snapped his fingers: "Threesome!"

"You sick— Fuck!"she screamed, unable to produce a more suitable description. "You just want us to play your sick, twisted games! You don't care about helping– you don't care about my soul!"

"On the contrary," he said seriously, rising from the chair. "Think of this as a test. You can either open the door and break Oz's heart," he pointed to the door as it boomed again, "or you can let him break it down and I'll break his heart."

"If he sees us, he'll kill you," Jade answered, coldly, her face wet now with tears of frustration.

"You had better hope he doesn't," Loki cocked his head. "I'm your only shot at a soul. And besides," he raised an eyebrow, "I've killed hundreds of things worse than werewolves. Either way– if he breaks in, you lose."

A familiar look invaded Jade's face. Though he hadn't given it a name and was loath to call it friend, it was a look he knew quite well. Pure and vivid hatred. "You bastard," she whispered.

"So the question your soul is dying to know–" Loki said, as though he hadn't heard, "is not whether or not you love your Oz more than your soul– but whether you love him enough to hurt him, maybe lose him, or enough to kill him."

The door cracked as the statue's head smashed into it again. Oz drew it as far back as the corridor would allow, then charged again. Boom, and there was a distinct splintering sound. He was tearing the door from its frame. He tried, but couldn't hear the argument inside anymore. He drew the stature back and prepared himself to charge.

Then the door opened.

---

Thirty Four

10 November, 2001, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Oz's eyes widened as Jade stepped out of Loki's study, naked except for Loki's own white silk shirt. Her eyes were red and puffy and her face was streaked with tears.

Through the open door, Oz could see Loki sitting on the chair, shirtless, grinning. Oz swallowed, his mouth dry, his mind racing.

There was a loud bang which made Jade jump, as the heavy wooden statue fell to the floor. "Oz," she pleaded with a whisper, but he held up a hand to silence her. Through the open door, Loki was still grinning and licking his lips suggestively. Jade followed Oz's gaze and slammed the door closed behind her.

Oz's face was a twisted mask of pain and betrayal. "He raped you?" It was a quiet tone, all his energy forced into preventing the change. Already his skin bristled.

"No," she choked. Anything to keep him from changing. Anything. "It was–" she was about to say consensual but realized it would sound forced. "I wanted it." She felt her stomach turn.

Oz wasn't listening. He was fighting the rage as hard as he could. He had felt this before. With Willow. It had nearly gotten that Tara girl killed. Nonetheless, he felt the primal wolf begin to emerge.

"No," Jade begged as they both looked down to see Oz's right hand transform into a vicious paw. His breathing had quickened and his eyes had ceased to be human. "No, Oz, please," she pleaded. "I love you – please! He'll kill you!" Fresh tears welled up in her eyes as the wolf stared back at her.

---

As soon as the study door slammed shut, the lascivious grin vanished from Logan's face. He doubled over in the chair, his face twisted in disgust. His hand moved to the table top to steady himself, then he quickly threw his head over beside the stack of books and vomited.

It had been the most vile thing he had ever done. Logan shivered and slowly drew his hand over the corners of his lips to wipe away the taste. Maybe he was a sick fuck, as Jade insisted. He was thankful, at least, it had not been necessary to actually violate her. It was enough that she thought he had.

He looked to the closed door where two voices could just barely be heard. His hand slipped under a sheet of paper and found the small corked vial he had spent the night preparing – while she had slept.

He gripped it tight in his left hand, his thumb on the cork; ready in case she returned. His right hand he flexed and clenched, preparing it for the power it might wield if Oz were the one to enter. He could simply have checked with Wilson, as Jade had done before she had opened the door —cheater, he thought wryly— but some things were better just left until they had already crossed into Now. Only then were they truly certain.

His eyes fixed on the door. This was the true test, he knew. If she reentered, then she really did want a soul; bad enough to lose Oz for it. If he entered... then she didn't.

---

Jade cowered back against the door as Oz shifted from wolf to man and back again. In one lucid moment, as his human eyes looked into hers, the anger and betrayal melted from him to be replaced with something else. Fear. For her. Run, he mouthed as his teeth became fangs.

With wide eyes, she dashed down the corridor, her back to him when he let out an animal snarl, his claws tearing the clothes from his hide. Then he was after her.

Jade ran as hard as she could, rounding corners and dashing down a flight of steps into the darkness. She could defend herself, of course. Being part demon she could unleash her nastier side and let it take over in a fight– but an all-out battle between the wolf and the demon could only end one of two ways; neither good.

At the bottom of the stairs she crouched against the wall, peering up into the darkness of the corridor above. For long moments there was nothing but her pulse pounding in her ears. For a moment she feared Oz had returned to Loki's study, but there was no sound. And then there was.

The harsh breath of the lycanthrope echoed down the stairwell as Oz stood at the top, waiting for her to make a sound – make a move.

Jade's heart pounded faster. She silently wiped her clammy hands on the silk that was partially covering her. Then there was a vicious snarl, as somehow he had caught her scent, and he charged down the stairs.

Whimpering, Jade made her way in the blackness to the end of the corridor, her hand on a wall, guiding her. There were no turns —no branching corridors— the hallway simply ended. Ended with a door.

With Oz nearly breathing down her neck, she frantically searched for the door latch —opened it— and fell inside with Oz on top of her, his claws raking through the silk of the shirt.

Her fall, however, threw him off balance and in the darkness he rolled off of her and into something hard. She scrambled to her hands and knees and found her way out the door, the faintly glowing light from the corridor above the stairwell beyond guiding her.

No sooner had she slammed the door shut again and heard the latch click then there was the furious pounding of Oz as he attacked the door. Jade sank to the floor, her back against the door. She drew her knees up to her cheeks and cried as Oz tore the place apart.

---

Logan twisted in his chair to look at Wilson, his beloved Dagon Sphere. He rolled his eyes and shook his head cynically as he saw what was coming next. He set the vial down on the table with a small bang, then went over to stretch out on the cot.

---

By the time Jade had grown exhausted from crying, the raging on the other side of the door had stopped. Slowly, wiping the back of her hand across her tear-stained cheeks, Jade stood. She made a small knock on the door.

"Oz?" She asked timidly. Her hand found the latch and she gently opened the door. If he hadn't regained control — it would be only a matter of seconds. The wolf was not known for stealth or ambush. This knowledge, above all else, kept her moving forward —her hands outstretched— as the seconds ticked by.

The air in here was thick and had an odd smell. Her breathing was fast and shallow as her bare feet carefully carried her forward, her fingers moving back and forth through the darkness.

She gave a small gasp of surprise when warm fingers interlaced with hers, tugging on her arms, taking her down to the floor. He was naked, she knew; he always was when he came back. She didn't care now: He was warm and his arms were around her.

She felt his nose and mouth press to her neck and she knew there was nowhere else she wanted to be. She felt him slowly pull the torn silk from her body, then his arms wrapped even tighter around her. He slowly breathed in her scent — her shoulders, her arm.

"Do you remember it?" Oz's voice was gentle yet strained as he asked of her night with the conjurer.

Her eyes stung and she shook her head against his shoulder. She knew he understood, for his gentle hands began caressing her body. In the dark, with his back up against something and herself in his lap, the only thing else she wanted was to forget why they were here. She felt him breathe her in deeply again. There was a quiet serenity about his movements, his touching, the result of focused meditation, that made her almost sleepy.

"He never touched you," Oz whispered in her ear. His teeth gently took the tip of her ear in his mouth. "His scent is barely on you."

An unspoken relief flooded through her. So deep it was that she let out a shuddering sigh and had to suppress more tears. It had been a very emotional day. She twisted in his lap, no doubt strengthening his arousal, and kissed him deeply, finding his lips from nothing but the feel of his breath.

He laid her back onto the shredded silk shirt and returned the kiss. They began to make love in the inky darkness as, through sunken eyes, Haargan watched them from across the room.

---

Thirty Five

11 November, 2001, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

In the wee small hours of the morning, with nothing but Wilson to light up the room, Loki's eyes opened. Jade looked down at him. There were no tears in her eyes now. Lit in profile by the cloudy red glow, she looked quite demonic.

"The same reason," she said calmly, "that I came to you for help is why there will be very little left of you if you don't answer me honestly."

Loki raised an intrigued eyebrow. "What kind of demon was your father?"

Jade brought her right hand out of her shadow. Her fingers lengthened and thickened, her skin becoming scaly. Serrated spines poked out of her knuckles and hooked claws replaced her nails. "The messy kind," she replied.

Loki nodded appreciatively. He indicated the transformation of her hand. "Can you do that with your _whole_ body?"

She cocked her head slightly. "Do you really want to find out?" Her clawed hand was threateningly close to his neck.

"Honestly?" He inquired with a small trace of humor, "No, not really."

"Start talking," she commanded, her fingers circling his throat, her sharpened knuckles pressing under his chin.

He swallowed. "Boy is born. Boy grows up. Boy is introduced–"

"About my soul," she hissed, her pupils becoming slits, dividing her irises in half. Her claws dug into the flesh around his trachea.

"Ah," he gurgled, his voice almost comically higher. "Well —honestly— I know you'll never find it if you kill me... and even if you did find it, I doubt you'd find it very useful. This–" his eyes glanced down to her hand, "-is exactly why it wasn't in you to begin with."

Around his throat, Loki felt her hand become small and soft again. Her eyes, becoming human, looked at him with festering resentment. After a pause, she released him and stood straight beside his cot. He groaned and sat up, swinging his legs over the edge and planting his feet on the floor. He noticed Oz in the background, his one side illuminated in red. Both wore robes like the monks' and both looked very irate.

Loki rubbed his throat, glad there would be no embarrassing scars. Oz stepped forward. "What do we do?" He asked, covering the spite that welled up as he looked at the conjurer. "And no more games."

Loki folded his hands in his lap. "Okay then. No more games." He pointed to the table. "That vial," he said with all trace of humor carefully eliminated, "contains the most lethal poison magic can conjure. One drop can kill the heartiest troll, the healthiest demon," he gave Jade a pointed glance. She had already approached the table and was examining the vial in the red glow of the Now Sphere.

"To prove you willingness to harbor a soul–" Loki went on as Jade uncorked the vial, "–you must allow _Oz_ to drink it."

Jade, who without hesitation had been about to down the entire substance now paused. The small glass bottle glinted red in the light. "You can't be serious," she said with the first traces of that pure and vivid emotion Loki knew so well.

"I can be perfectly serious when I choose to be," was his response. Not that I'm choosing to be, now, he failed to add. He turned to Oz who had a startled and confused look on his usually worried face.

"I have to drink it?" He asked. The confusion was born more from having been unexpectedly included in this affair rather than having been simply asked to die. When his confusion did not soften Loki's look of resolve, Oz strode forward in one motion and seized the vial from Jade's hand.

"No!" She snatched it back. Gently, he took her hands in his.

"Let me do this," he voice was calm and rational, whereas hers was pleading.

She was shaking her head in the red light. "No," she said with finality. "If that's what the damn thing costs, I don't want it."

Loki raised an intrigued eyebrow. Interesting. He shifted to a more comfortable position on the cot to watch the dramatic exchange.

"Think about it," Oz was saying, "I love you," he said with conviction. "It was because of him that I changed, not you. I know you could never do anything to hurt me like that." He recalled the reason he had been forced to leave Willow. His emotional connection to her had been so deep that any trace of passion against her instead of for her would make him change. He had been careful to prevent such a connection to Jade. But he loved her all the more because he knew he could. Two pairs of hands clasped the tiny vial. "I want us to be together — for the rest of our lives." His eyes were sad. "But that won't be forever." He looked down at the small glinting thing they both held. "If forever needs to be now, then it's worth it."

Her look of denial and desperation slowly softened as they locked eyes. That bond was there, Loki was positive now. It was nothing unique between specters. Just a kind of love he had never really known. Not even with Niki.

Slowly Jade nodded then looked down to their tightly clasped hands. A look from her eyes made Oz remove his hands. Loki leaned forward to see what would happen. This was all very interesting.

Jade slowly brought the vial to her lips and took a long sip from it, letting the liquid slide under her tongue. She leaned forward and took Oz's face in her hands, bringing his lips to hers. As they kissed, he drank from her mouth and she swallowed what she could.

Loki made a gesture of wiping a tear from his eye, then made and exaggerated sniffle. The sweet kiss of death — classic.

But when they finally broke from their kiss, it was Jade, not Oz who dropped to her knees with a cry of agony. Oz held her shoulders as her face twisted in pain. Finally he had to let her go as she writhed and convulsed on the floor.

Oz turned on Loki in the dim light. "What was that?" He demanded. "I don't feel anything!"

"Well," Loki shrugged, "you should feel a bit more hydrated. That was some top quality water." He smiled as Oz glanced down at the half empty vial. His eyes moved to Jade who was now moaning, her eyes and mouth beginning to glow. "Besides—" Loki said with satisfaction, "you're not the one getting a soul shoved down your throat."

Oz dropped to his knees and lifted Jade into a sitting position, the glow diminishing. "Jade," he said gently. Her bleary eyes found his in the dim light. "How do you feel?" He pressed.

She opened her mouth but for a moment couldn't form words. Finally, when she had shaken her head to clear the odd sensation, she spoke, her voice hoarse and tired. "Is this how you feel?" she asked, puzzled, "all the time?"

Oz held her and turned to Logan, who shrugged compliantly. The young man looked down into her eyes as he held her. Was there something else there? Something he'd never seen before? Then she closed her eyes and he his and they sat together, wordlessly in the red glow as, through the slitted window, the sun began to rise.

---

15 November, 2001, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Oz stared out at the crisp winter mountain scene. Truly stunning. He could have stared at the dizzying depths and heights for an eternity. But it was quite cold and the slightest breeze across the small stone balcony would cut skin like scalding water. Oz drew the great fur coat tighter around him and turned for the entrance back to his room. When he opened the heavy wooden door, however, he realized that someone was opening it from the other side.

Loki stood holding a wooden mug of something steaming. "Tea?" he said simply, setting the mug down into Oz's willing hands. "It soothes the soul."

The young man looked up with an expression which informed the conjurer he was not amused.

Loki just smiled. "Jade has all her things packed—" the conjurer pulled his robes tighter about him as a breeze whistled through the open door to the balcony. Shutting it and sliding the great curtain back into place, the blond man turned back to the red-head. "But you don't seem to be either packed or packing." His tone was one that came from already knowing the truth, but knowing Oz needed to say it.

"I'm not going with her," he said frankly. He sipped the tea, welcoming the warmth it brought to his chest.

Loki turned towards the smoldering ashes in the small fireplace. "But you two seemed so right for each other – and I've already got you a wedding present."

Oz ignored the dry sarcasm as the conjurer poked the small embers and blew on them until they began to glow. The young man knew the conjurer could have set the room on fire with a thought if he'd wanted to, but was instead prolonging the conversation.

"She's got some things she needs to take care of – things I can't help her with." He looked like he wanted to say more, but he stopped and just looked quietly as the glowing coals.

Loki glanced up at him while attempting to get the fire going the old fashioned way. Finally he gave up and reached into the red-hot embers with his bare hand. Oz watched, impassively, not particularly impressed, as the fire sprang to life again. Casually, the young man began to warm himself by the small fire.

Loki pulled his hand out, wringing it as if it really did burn, obviously a little disappointed at Oz's reaction. "You'll be staying here then?"

Oz looked up suddenly: he had been mulling it over, but Loki's expression seemed to have decided for him. "If it's okay with you—"

Loki chuckled a little and slapped the young man on the back. "Of _course_ it's okay with me," he grinned. "I can count the number people who don't want me dead on one hand. And you're one of them."

A strange little smile crept onto Oz's lips. It was an odd compliment, but Loki didn't give them out often and Oz would take it. What he was saying, Oz realized, was that Loki liked him. His smile dwindled, however, when he considered whether that said more about Oz than it did about Loki.

But the conjurer was already walking contentedly towards the door, leaving a roaring, crackling fire which the surrounding stones barely contained. "_Meet me out front in twenty minutes._"

Oz's smile was gone altogether. Maybe this hadn't been the best idea…

---

15 November, 2001, Chamdo, Tibet – First Day of Eighth Lunar Month

Loki was surprised to see so many people in the market at this time of year. Chamdo was a booming tourist location, especially during festivals, but the Festival of the Ancestors –Ulambana—had never been a popular one in Chamdo. Certainly not this popular.

Oz followed the conjurer a few paces behind, keeping one eye on the unmistakable white shirt and another on the bustling crowd he was wading through. He wasn't sure why there were so many people here, or exactly why he and Loki were here, but it was good to get out of the monastery for a little while. Oz couldn't exactly place why, but the entire place smelled vaguely of death.

Oz suddenly caught up to the conjurer as he found the single person he had been looking for. They exchanged a few words in butchered Khampa, the native dialect, and the wrinkly old man with whom the tall blond conversed pointed far to one end of the market square. Loki looked in that direction, then back to the old man, then back in the direction. Finally, he bowed and turned to ensure Oz was still following.

"It's just over there," he said, indicating the direction the old man had said. "About fifteen kilometers."

"_What's_ just over there?" Oz prodded, quickening his pace to keep up with the conjurer's long strides. "Where are we going?"

Loki talked while he walked, his eyes never leaving their distant destination. "What do you know about this festival?"

Oz blinked. "I didn't even know it was one."

Loki smiled. "Today is the first day of the eighth lunar month by the Chinese traditional calendar. It marks the beginning of Ulambana – the Festival of the Ancestors, when tradition says the Gates of Hell open and the souls of the ancestors are let loose for fifteen days. People go to the cemeteries and offer food to the starving spirits."

"Sounds spooky," Oz said dryly, not seeing why this had anything to do with their outing. "And where are we going again?"

Loki cocked his head in annoyance as they finally reached the end of the square. He rounded a corner, out of the sprawling crowd and could lower his voice somewhat. "The Gates of Hell are open," he turned to look Oz straight in the eye. "And they're in that direction." He pointed the way they were going.

The young red-haired man stared at him for a moment in incredulity. "You're serious?"

Loki turned back and kept walking. "I'm serious."

Oz stood still for a moment then had to jog to catch up. "We're going to the gates of hell. For real."

Loki didn't respond. He just kept walking. They reached the end of the street and the conjurer jumped up onto a stack of crates to jump the small fence. Oz stared after him for a minute, then glanced behind to see if anyone was watching. With a resigned sigh, he scrambled up the pile of wooden crates and followed after.

The young man jogged up beside the fast walking conjurer as they left the town limits and began their trek across the plateau. "Hey, can't you just… you know – zap us there?"

Loki shrugged. "You could use the exercise." He looked back to the muscular young man and rolled his eyes. "_I_ could use the exercise."

"Hey, here's a better question: why are we going to the gates of hell?" Oz stopped dead in his tracks, forcing the conjurer to stop in order to answer him.

Loki made an exaggerated sigh. "Look, if you didn't want to come, you could have flown back to California with Jasmine."

"Jade," Oz corrected.

"Whatever," the conjurer dismissed. "I'm the wizard, you're the tourist. You don't ask: I tell." With that he turned back and continued walking. The immense Qingzang plateau became broken and mottled up ahead as it led into the foothills of the Hangduan mountains. To the left, a river could be seen in the distance, and the conjurer was steering steadily towards it.

After about three hours of hiking in silence, the duo came to a crux in the bouldery terrain where two rivers met and intertwined. The water had cut several terraces out of the ground and Oz got the distinct feeling this was somewhere important.

"Welcome to Kanuo," Loki said, pleased. "The five thousand year old ruins of a Khampa village."

"These are the gates of hell?" Oz looked around. The place was quietly eerie, but he didn't see any ghosts…

"No, this is a five thousand year old ruin." Loki repeated, picking up the pace and starting to circumvent the site. "The gates of hell are straight ahead. About an hour away."

Oz sighed and started after the man in the white silk shirt. The sun was setting behind them and already the sky ahead was dark. In an hour, the young man didn't know how they were going to navigate. His stomach growled.

But it took less than thirty minutes before the conjurer slowed way down, stepping now cautiously from rock to rock as they climbed up a steep slope. In the orange rays of the dying day, they crested the hill to look into a deep, dark valley.

Oz and Loki looked down into the shadow of the hill, neither taking another step forward. At the bottom of the valley, a black pit some ten meters across yawned up into the evening air. The edge of the pit was solid rock, the earth having been peeled away and no vegetation daring to take root. The air smelled musty as the wind carried the fumes from the pit to their faces.

Loki looked into the hole for a long time before finally drawing breath and turning to his companion. "We're here."

Oz stared, wide eyed, his heart pounding, at the very gates of hell. At the bottom of the steep slope, the pit loomed like a giant maw, effortlessly swallowing anything that drew near. It was as though gravity drew all things into this hole, defying physics to bring them into the dark. The light itself seemed to disappear.

A cold sweat was working its way out of the young man's skin, uncomfortably clammy in the cold night air. He unconsciously slowed his breath, trying not to make any sound. He didn't understand why he was so scared at the sight of the hole in the Earth, but he understood why no one ever came here. His head snapped around as the conjurer began to descend the slope, his boots dislodging loose stones and sending them clattering down to the valley floor. Oz's heart raced: he was sure the noise Loki was carelessly making would wake up some terrible beast… or wake the hole itself. He watched, wide eyed, as one of the larger rocks tumbled down the slope and rolled right over the edge of the hole into the black void beyond. He swore he heard a deep groan, and never a sound of the rock striking the bottom.

Loki clamored down the rocky hillside, moving faster and faster, worried he was going to lose his nerve. There was an unnatural fear lingering here – the result, he knew, of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of ghosts waiting, terrified, at the edge of hell to be released. But it was not the ghosts he had come here to see. It was the guardians.

Many faiths held a day when the dead returned to the Earth. All Saints day in the West, celebrated as Halloween by children, was fortunately a rather sedate time for most evil things. But here a tradition had been spawned from a much different take on a very similar festival. In a culture which believed in reincarnation, there were many other worlds into which a life might be born. Hell was one of them. For the terrified masses of tortured spirits just beyond the gates, they were given fifteen days of a different kind of hell by the founders of the tradition. Those who now guarded the frightening gates.

As Loki reached the bottom, he slowed down drastically, not daring to allow any kind of inertia to carry him closer to the pit. He walked carefully around it, feeling the distinct breeze off of it as if it were breathing… in his direction. He could hear sounds which he swore were muffled screams and desperate cries, but might have been the wind. It was quite dark in the valley now, with the sky turning a stale dark blue, shedding no light whatsoever into this place. Loki had to rely on his other senses than sight to tell him where to step and he was glad of it, because it meant he could keep his eyes on the dark pit to his left as he circled it.

The edge, he could swear, was getting closer even though he began to steer away from it. The more he turned and walked in a different direction, the more it seemed as though he were creeping closer and closer to it. His legs, when he looked down, were obeying his commands and turning him to the right, but the edge of the hole, in the darkness which surrounded, was relentlessly approaching from the left. He stopped completely to look around and realized he was almost on the other side, about five feet from the edge of the hole - he could see Oz on the crest of the hill, silhouetted by the failing light behind him. When he looked down however, his heart skipped a beat: he was standing with his toes over the edge of the pit staring down into a maddening darkness which screamed and howled with terror from deep inside.

He nearly jumped out of his skin as a hand came down on his shoulder. The man behind him took him by the elbow and led him away from the hole, his legs moving stiffly.

Loki looked at the man in the face and blinked. He was short, understandably gaunt and his hair was so thin as to be barely existent. His eyes were wise and curious. He inspired more a sense of peace than fear. This was who he had come for. Another man stepped up from behind the first. He was slightly taller and his eyes were wild. The second guardian. Loki nodded, his fear temporarily forgotten. These men were legendary, though their legend was largely unknown.

One thousand years ago, the monk Śāntarakşita brought Buddhism to this region from the Indus valley. Converting the king and the entire court, Śāntarakşita angered the local Tibetan spirits, who began to rain destruction down on the new converts, flooding their crops and spreading a terrible plague. Śāntarakşita advised the king to send for Padmasambhava, another of India who could tame the angry spirits. When Padmasambhava arrived, so the legend goes, he met with the spirits, counseled them and converted them all to Buddhism. And so the kingdom was spared.

All of this had been passed down for generations, Śāntarakşita's own account recorded in Sanskrit for the sake of public record. He and Padmasambhava were regarded as heroes – the guardians of Buddhism. But another account, which Loki had managed to get his hands on in the lamasery's treasure room, told a different story.

An account recorded in Sanskrit by Padmasambhava himself showed him in no uncertain terms as anything but a hero. Arriving in the beleaguered valley, Padmasambhava realized that Chamdo rested near an ancient Hellmouth – a place where a hell dimension of pure terror ran asymptotic to this dimension, where nameless evils congregated, waiting for an opportunity to cross over. For millennia, since the existence of Kanuo even, the inhabitants of this valley had paid homage and worshiped the demons and spirits. Then Buddhism had come and the people abandoned the spirits in favor of enlightened thought. Padmasambhava came to this place and called the evil into form, hoping to placate it.

But the evil would not accept sacrifice. It would not even accept Padmasambhava's offer of his own life. And so he was forced to give it what it truly wanted. With Śāntarakşita's help, he reached an agreement with the evil, allowing it to leave the Earth altogether to the hell dimension beyond the tenuous barrier between the two dimensions. According to Padmasambhava's account, the two monks, upon forcing open a conduit between the dimensions, came face to face with the lord of the hell dimension, terrible and angry. He was much more willing to accept sacrifice and intended to drag the monks into the hell dimension for eternity for breaching its barriers, but Śāntarakşita's reason and steady thoughts managed to sway the demon into bargaining. In exchange for their lives and the continued existence of Chamdo, the monks promised the demon the souls of all of those in Chamdo who died on the karmic wheel.

For a millennium now, the monks stood guard by the hole where every year, as a cruel addition to the arrangement, the demon has allowed the captured souls fifteen days to revisit the world they left behind – see family they can never love again, be offered food they can never eat, see peace they will never experience – before they are forced to return to their domain of unending terror.

Loki understood their shame, the grinding emotion which had kept them alive all these centuries and promised them no rest even in death. They had sacrificed the dead to save the living. A deal with the devil on behalf of all future generation who lived in this valley. There was a good reason why Loki's monastery was located high in the mountains, outside what could be considered the bounds of the valley: it had been founded by Śāntarakşita himself – the only other person who knew the unhappy truth.

Loki stared at the two old men; centuries spent trying to reclaim part of the peace they had known before they had come to this cursed valley. They had answers he sought. Answers worth braving this horrid place on the very night when the gates would open – the only night of the year when the two old men were awake. They guarded the pit the one night when beings could pass from hell to Earth and ensured no demons crossed over. For fifteen days, during the festival, the spirits were taunted by the living, who were unaware of this fact, until on the last day they were called back to hell. The guardians slept through the festival –and for the rest of the year– knowing beings could only pass back into hell on the fifteenth day.

It was tonight that they awoke. Tonight that they lived for. They lived to make certain that the demon on the other side kept his promise and did not send across legions of his own kind to destroy Chamdo and the world beyond. Their guilt and their magic kept them in the world of the living, waking only on the day of the dead.

Śāntarakşita, the one with the wisdom in his eyes, opened his mouth and a deep stench came out. The ancient man took in a deep breath as Loki tried not to inhale and his graveling voice was almost inaudible.

"Who are you?"

Loki swallowed. He did need answers…

Oz had been watching as the conjurer rounded the pit, walking incomprehensibly closer and closer to the edge to the point where he looked like he was going to jump in. Oz had wanted to shout to him, demand what he was doing, but the fear he took in with every breath kept him motionless as a stone. If he moved, his mind screamed at him, something would be awoken. Something terrible.

So now he watched as Loki spoke to the two figures, the three of them cloaked in the deepened darkness. The sun was all but gone now and Oz would be damned if he was going to spend the night next to this god-awful pit. He doubted he would be able to sleep for a month. The darkness seemed to conjure in his mind little more than a feeling, but Oz's own mind interpolated the necessary images and sounds. His own unleashed imagination made Oz's stomach turn. He wanted to vomit or pass out but moving was out of the question.

At last, Loki turned from the two figures – seeming only a ghost himself in his white silk shirt, and circled the pit, keeping as far as he could from its edge as he headed back to the slope.

Oz waited for the conjurer to clamor up the hillside again before taking his eyes from the deep darkness. He didn't care why they had come, didn't care if they'd gotten it. He cared about only one thing.

"Can we go now?" His voice was hoarse.

Loki took Oz's wrist and glanced at the young man's watch. It was two minutes to eleven. His heart raced. On the ancient Chinese calendar, the day ended at eleven in the evening. The gates would be opening just… about…

In a frantic twist of light, the two travelers were gone, never hearing or seeing what the pit unleashed.

Oz held his chest as he and Loki appeared deep in the heart of the lamasery. The palpable relief he felt at being away from that god-forsaken valley was clear on his face. He took deep breaths, trying to clear his mind of the images that had been rushing through it.

Loki watched him, curiously. "You felt it, didn't you?"

Oz didn't answer, he just tried to calm himself and slow his breathing and pounding heart.

Loki smiled. "Made your blood run cold – made your spine tingle. A terror only the soul can perceive. That special perception you non-Specters have about evil and death. It must have been very uncomfortable."

Oz finally turned to look across the broad stone chamber, his face lit by the firelight. His face broke out into a grin. He laughed a little, as if it would clear away some of the nervousness he still felt. "Wow, I haven't been that scared since the good old days back in Sunnydale."

Loki's smile diminished. He swallowed. Sunnydale? How was it possible that he hadn't known… His eyes searched Oz's face furiously: did he know? With a gentle thought, the conjurer reached out and sifted through Oz's memories, something he had never felt necessary to do until now. He saw the Slayer, saw the highschool, the friends, felt the love and longing for the witch…

"Who were those guys anyway?" Oz asked, completely incognizant of the silent invasion of his mind, the perusal of his thoughts.

Loki relaxed. Oz had no suspicion of Loki's interference in his old friends' lives. He withdrew from his friend's mind and pulled his attention quickly back to the question. "Those two men," the conjurer began, his honesty fair enough payment for his trespass, "were the guardians of the gates of hell. A thousand years ago, they opened a portal between this world and a hell dimension – what most consider a kind of afterlife." The conjurer deliberately left out the part about the deal with the devil. "If it's possible to open conduits to move between the realms of life and death, I need to know how."

Oz frowned, his eyebrows narrowing. "Why?"

Loki shrugged a little. "It's important to me… and to what I do."

Oz seemed to accept this. He was silent for a long time, thinking his thoughts over and over, wondering if he could contribute. He suddenly felt like a new employee with no idea how the business was run. He finally turned his gaze back on the conjurer who had been looking back at him. "Do we do this kind of thing a lot?"

Loki's smile slowly spread. The fire crackled delightfully in the background.

---

Thirty Six

20 December, 2001, Amsterdam, Netherlands

The lights were dim and the music was subdued. No one had come here for entertainment. There was a thin mist near the floor and an old, tiny television played highlights from an erotic feature, near the corner of the bar.

The front room, consisting of a bar, the mist and about ten nearly deserted small tables, was quite dim and featureless. The bar served several occult drinks, which were displayed on a small blackboard beside the television. The names of the drinks were scrawled in chalk and almost unreadable, but they included such specialties as extra-virgin blood, smyte and spinal scotch.

Loki rolled his shoulders back and listened to the crack. He nursed his smyte in his left hand, sipping on it occasionally. Smyte was the underworld's answer to rye and coke: instead of coke, the barkeep squirted in a few drops of holy water – just enough to make it burn going down for any vampire.

To Loki, smyte was just watered down rye, though it was by far the only thing served he could stomach. The bar didn't even serve regular water. But then, no one had come here for the drinks.

Above the list of drinks on the chalk board was the only other advertisement in the entire establishment. Not even a name —this place didn't have one— just a picture. Drawn crudely in red chalk, an inverted crucifix made of two perpendicular syringes informed all who entered what they would find.

But that was in the back room. Loki hadn't come here for that. What he wanted was a few stools down the bar, sipping at some black fluid which looked most like motor oil.

His name was Derex, and no one was quite sure what he was. He didn't strictly fit the description of any specific demon or creature, leading some to believe he was a custom job —made to order by a vengeance demon, perhaps. None of this really mattered. What mattered was that Derex knew a guy who knew a guy, so it was said.

"Stay here," Loki advised Oz who sat, uncomfortably on his own stool, sipping his own smyte. Loki stood and ambled over to the odd looking Derex.

Derex turned, his shrunken head and wiry hair resting on a tiny neck between bulky shoulders. It looked as though someone had shot an octogenarian in the face with a shrink-ray. His voice, however, was surprisingly deep for the size of his voice box. Then again, there was nothing inhuman about the rest of him. In fact, he looked like a rather muscular, well built man. "What do you want?" said the small head, no larger than a grape fruit.

"I hear you know a guy," Loki said casually, "who might know a guy who's a necromancer."

"I know tons of people go by the name guy," Derex answered, sipping his oily drink.

Loki smiled and turned to the barkeep. "Another of whatever that is for my friend," and the conjurer sat down beside the cranially deficient man.

Derex laughed out loud. "It'll take a lot more than a drink to get me to give up guy!"

Loki though this over. "What do you do, Derex?"

The man shrugged his comparatively massive shoulders. "Make appearances, mostly. 'Come see man with extremely tiny head.' That sort of thing." He took a long, abject swig from his drink.

"Wouldn't you like to get away from it all – get out of this place and see the world?" Loki made a sweeping gesture to emphasize the expanse of the world.

"How would I do that?" Derex said, annoyed, "I got no money. I live in a cage and my Keeper pays my bar tab, assuming it's not too big. How could I afford to travel? To live?"

"What I'm offering would let you be free – free to live like a king." Loki let that settle in as he sipped his smyte again. He gave a subtle not to Oz who was still sitting at the other end of the bar.

"What exactly are you offering?" Derex asked, stifling the hope he felt at an offer like that.

"Teleportation," Loki answered simply. "Poof, you're in an unused five star hotel room for the night, no one's the wiser. Poof, you're in and out of a bank vault — no one knows. Freedom," Loki emphasized, "freedom to be – to steal – to kill... whatever, whoever you like." He took another sip of smyte. "That's what I'm offering. You just need to tell me about guy. Where do I find him — how do I get there?"

Derex' eyes were gleaming with anticipation. He had never considered the advantages of teleportation. Freedom was something he had only ever dreamt of since... Freedom to kill. "Guy's name is Indris. He lives across town in a big mansion-type thing. Necromancer –yeah– keeps a lot of dead people on hand: sometimes corpses, sometimes vampires. Sometimes other things."

Loki nodded. "Thank you, you've been very helpful."

"Teleportation?" Derex demanded, standing as Loki did, his tall body more than making up for the height loss caused by his small head. "Give it to me."

Loki nodded. He took a small sack of dust from his pocket and undid the drawstring, taking a small pinch and sprinkling it into the oily black drink. "Lychus, mochara... yadda, yadda, duchus, mochara, blah, blah, blah — you're done." He pointed to the motor oil and its magically dusty surface. "Drink up."

Derex took the drink and guzzled it down. He sighed and set the empty –yet still oily– glass back on the bar. "That's it?"

"That'll do for one return trip," Loki nodded, handing the small bag of dust to Derex. "A pinch will get you anywhere you want to go –and probably back again– before it wears off. Sprinkle it in your... tar or on your hotdog — I don't care. Just don't waste the last of it on a trip to Antarctica. There's no guarantees here." Loki tried to advise him, but Derex was already stuffing the small sack into his pocket, planning where he might go now that he was free of the retched Keeper. "I suggest you make a trip to the bank first," but Derex held up a hand.

"I've got some personal things to take care of first." He raised his hands uncertainly then looked to Loki. "Thank you— and I hope you find what you're–" and he accidentally vanished into thin air.

Loki shrugged and turned back to Oz, taking his original seat. "Indris, the other side of town."

Oz nodded and both men stood, laying down the cash for their drinks. "Are you sure that was a good idea?" Oz indicated the stool recently occupied by 'man with extremely tiny head.'

Loki shook his head, amused. "A small-headed Dutch man. What could possibly happen?"

---

Derex looked up from the fresh corpse of the Keeper. The Holders would be here soon, he knew, but Derex wouldn't wait around. He had other fish to fry.

Anyanka, he thought with a sneer, you'll pay for doing this to me...

---

"I'm lost," Oz said with a frown as the two walked quickly over the bridge and down the street.

Loki raised an eyebrow. "No you're not — you're in Amsterdam, on... unpronounceable street."

"No, no. I mean, why are we here?" Oz pointed to the tall, admittedly impressive Dutch mansion before them. "What does a necromancer have to do with your... profession?"

"Well, it's all well and good to dish out souls like penny candies, but most people assume that along with their soul comes certain... certainties. For example," Loki said, holding up a finger as they approached the front gate, "the entire concept of life after death. Perhaps the single most useful, or at least most recognized value of a soul. But have you –having a soul– ever experienced it?"

Oz shrugged. "I guess not."

"But you know what's waiting for you?" Loki raised a skeptical eyebrow. "What's waiting for you and Jade, enough to die together for her soul?"

Oz frowned. "Do you?"

Loki shrugged. "I always figured it was pretty much irrelevant in my case. But the question has always plagued me. Do I know? No." He pointed to the house before them. "He does." With a creak, the tall, iron gate before them swung inwards. A light, cold rain began to fall.

---

Thirty Seven

20 December, 2001, Amsterdam, Netherlands

The rain steadily grew harder and soon it was sleeting. During the night, no doubt, it would turn to snow. The sleet pattered on the windows of the great house as Loki and Oz stood in the front hall.

A servant of some kind had already taken their jackets and had advised them that the master would be along shortly. They were not kept waiting long.

From a tall arched doorway set behind the sweeping staircase, beneath a decidedly stunning chandelier, strode the master of the house.

Rather short and wide, Indris walked with all the pomp and circumstance of a baron or duke. He wore black fur-trimmed scarlet robes with a black cord at the waist. There was even a tassel hanging from each end of the cord which hung by his hip. The robe itself was a bit long to be functional, skirting along behind him, collecting dust.

His hair was as black as the fur that lined his collar, impeccably trimmed and glossy, hanging down in small, severe locks across his brow, just to his thin eyebrows of the same color.

His eyes, though struggling to be charming and bright, were small and deep-set in his round pallid face. His smile was as falsely pleasant as he drew his thick lips away from too many perfectly even teeth.

"Welcome to my house," he said with a slow and deliberate bow.

"Mister Indris, I presume," Loki bowed in return.

Indris nodded. "How does one say? Come of your own free will and leave some of the happiness you bring."

"He's a necromancer?" Oz whispered through a plastered smile. Loki's answer was interrupted by Indris himself.

"Please, I do not like that term. Death is not my profession, merely an unavoidable side effect of ending lives."

"We would like to make use of your talents, if you would allow-" the conjurer was silenced when Indris raised a hand.

"Please— First things must come first. Introductions always come first." He made a small nod of his head, as if greeting them again for the first time. "I am Indris, but of that you are already aware."

"Of course," Loki nodded his own head. "I am Loki, and this is Oz my..." he took on a puzzled look for a moment, "friend," he finished. Oz nodded once during his introduction.

Indris closed his eyes took a deep breath then opened them again. His smile was unchanged. "You are the same Loki of Tibet? The Loki of Estonia?"

Loki cocked his head. He had nearly forgotten about Estonia. He had no idea his reputation could have preceded him. His entire existence had been geared towards keeping things low key. "The same Loki of many continents," he acknowledged.

Indris nodded, satisfied. "And what do a conjurer and a werewolf want of a necromancer?"

Oz raised an eyebrow. "I thought you didn't like that term."

Indris nodded, patiently. "I refer to the necromancer you seek, not necessarily to myself, since I do not yet know why it is you have sought me out."

"We need you to kill someone," Loki answered reasonably.

The smile melted from the necromancer's face. It had been a fake smile after all, and it was now replaced with a much more sincere glower. "Follow me," he said simply, turning and almost gliding back behind the broad stairs.

Loki and Oz followed, entering a high, broad hallway with large wooden, double doors every few dozen feet. Finally, they reached the end of the hallway and two very large glass and mahogany doors opened before them.

Beyond, led by Indris who continued to glide almost without moving his legs, Loki and Oz found themselves in a large, ornate dining room of sorts. With plants and shrubs in pots and tall vases and paintings on the wall, and even a tapestry depicting some winged creature, the room looked like the foyer of some museum. But where, at its center, a beautiful statue or exotic sculpture might have been; a simple wooden table rested.

Set in the ceiling was a particularly bright light which shone down on the head of the table – giving away the only clue that it was for something other than dining.

Two servants stood submissively near the far exit, one on either side of the door, their eyes locked on the floor before their feet. They wore simple suits, complete with white gloves, and their faces, down-turned as they were, were in shadow.

Indris ignored the servants and glided past the central table to a small shelf near the wall which held several old books and a tall candelabrum. He removed a file folder from under one of the books and brought it back to Loki and Oz.

Opening it, he sighed. "Very well — we've got sacrificial cows, calves, birds of all sorts, virgins– virgin cows if you want, priests, priestesses, a few nuns – none of these are guaranteed to be immaculate, you understand–"

Loki held up a hand when he realized what Indris was offering. "No, no, no. We don't need a ritual sacrifice." He took a breath to explain. "We just need someone to die and tell us what's there."

"There?" Indris asked, blankly

"Yes — there," Loki shrugged, "after, beyond — whatever you want to call it. We want a description: names and faces of people they see there."

Indris, trying to pretend he wasn't confused, began to nod. "A description, you say. Alright, — I think I can accommodate you," he glanced down at his file again, turning over the top page. "An artist is what you'd want. Here we are," he began to read from the page. "We have a reincarnation of Michelangelo, someone who claims he's channeling Da Vinci — ah, here we are: we have a whole class of senior art students from the local college. On tour." There was a little shrug. "None of them likely to be virgins, but—"

"No, no — anyone will do; but obviously we need cooperation," Loki emphasized, "so they have to volunteer."

Indris looked up sharply at this. "Volunteers are quite rare, you must realize. And obviously quite expensive. Even with your... substantial reputation, I doubt you could afford a volunteer."

"Well, first of all," Loki said casually, "we have no intention of paying you at all unless we are completely satisfied, and secondly," he held up a finger to prevent any objection, "I happen to have at my disposal the entire Dagon relic collection — so I assure you: money will not be a problem."

Indris raised an eyebrow. "I do not deal in money or relics. I deal in the dead — and their lives." He turned from them, snapping the folder closed. "Come, my friends," he said, his back turned as he headed for the far door. The two servants bowed and opened the double doors for him. "Come and I will show you my life's work."

Loki and Oz followed the necromancer into the next room. At first it was quite dark, but with a clap of his hands, Indris had the servants turn on the lights. It took a moment for the sight to impact both Oz and Loki. Then Oz backed up, almost completely out of the room, while Loki simply stared – his mouth hanging open.

"You have your collection," Indris smiled, "and I have mine."

---

Thirty Eight

21 December, 2001, Sunnydale

Anya stretched the garland between her outstretched arms. It was no use. This garland was obviously defective. Xander would have to buy more.

"Anya?" Willow called from the bottom of the ladder. Anya looked down at the witch who, let's face it, was doing very little to help with the decoration of the Magic Box. "There's someone at the front counter looking for you," she said nervously. "He – ah, he's looking for Anyanka."

"Describe him as I—" Anya got to the bottom of the ladder and turned. "Never mind."

Derex looked back. "Hello, Anyanka," he said, his tiny face showing no indication that he was happy to see her.

"Derex!" she said after a moment or two of staring. "Small head — I mean world! Small world, eh?" She clapped him on the shoulder, "though I suppose not from your perspective."

"Anya!" Willow looked shocked at Anya's candor.

Anya looked about, then nodded in comprehension. "Oh, right, the head." She grinned. "You know, that's not the only thing that's tiny—"

"Anya!" Willow's eyes were wide with embarrassment. "Do you," she made a little polite cough, "do you know each other?"

Anya shrugged as Derex fumed. "We used to date," she explained.

"We had one date," Derex hissed, his fists clenched. "At the end of which you did this to me!" He indicated his shrunken cranium and its decrepit appearance.

"Well... you shouldn't have been gawking at that other woman." Anya turned to Willow, dropping her voice. "He had no idea how damaging it was to my self-esteem."

"I barely glanced at her!" Derex defended, the volume of his voice reduced slightly by the tapering of his windpipe.

"She was barely clothed," Anya retorted, her hands on her hips.

"It doesn't matter now!" He shouted, raising the dagger from its place in his pocket. "I've come to kill you for what you did to me!"

"Well, hey," Willow spoke up, seeing an entry, "come on — it's not that bad..." her mind raced, thinking positively. "I mean, there's no real harm done, right?"

"She ruined my life!" He bellowed, pointing the knife tip at the former vengeance demon. He advanced until the two women were backed up against a bookshelf.

"Oh, please!" Anya scoffed. "I gave you a career!" This made him pause in confusion. "What were you going to do with your life? Do you really think marine biology would have made you happy?" She made an encouraging smile. "But now you're an entertainer! 'Come see man with extremely tiny head!' I saw your show once in Europe." Anya turned to Willow to continue. "They had these two chimps and they were wearing diapers. I mean – what's that about?"

"Enough!" Derex shouted, raising his knife. "They stuffed me in a cage for display! I was a freak!"

"Hello, you're still a freak," the ex-demon answered bluntly.

"Anya!" Willow's eyes were wide. "Ixnay on the eakfray," the witch quickly turned to the outraged knife man. "You're not a freak. You're just different. We're all different—"

"No, you're a freak," Anya continued, "I made sure you're ego would suffer as much as mine did. And even if you kill me— kill us both— or even just kill Willow, you're still a freak. Except then you'll be a hunted freak. Like that Frankenstein's monster. And let me tell you," she held up a finger, "as fairy tales go, that one didn't end very happily for the monster."

Derex was considering this, his knife hand slowly relaxing, when a large plastic candy cane smashed into the back of his tiny head. He tumbled to the floor, unconscious.

Xander hefted the candy cane, looked down at the odd body and frowned. "You really have bad taste in boyfriends."

She sighed. "I miss the days when I could have shrunken your head for that comment."

---

21 December, 2001, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Loki slowly entered the collection room while Oz remained at the door. "I admit," the conjurer said warily, "my collection includes the skulls of various early saints..." be breathed out. "But no full bodies... clothes and... and posing." He made his way past the rows of standing corpses, passing some far eastern ruler — completely frozen with silken gowns flowing about him and ceremonial sword extended. His face was a mask of anger and hatred, most likely preserved from the moment of death.

Without a response, he continued further into the room, past once living statues of witches and dignitaries and even a pontiff. There were demons and even a couple of vampires – their faces frozen in the inhuman snarl.

Oz remained standing by the door, examining the figures from a detached distance. His heightened sense of smell already told him the answer to the question he had to ask. "Tell me these aren't real people."

"Some were people," Indris confirmed, "some were demons or warlocks or vampires. I even have a werewolf near the back."

Oz looked away, disgusted. "All dead?"

"Not quite," the necromancer replied. "All are on the point of death, frozen, if you will, between life and unlife. Obviously the vampires still have some kick in them, otherwise I'd be sweeping them up off the floor, wouldn't I?"

"How is it done?" Loki asked, his voice disapproving but still fascinated. He had never concerned himself overmuch with manipulating the boundary of life and death. Killing had always suited his purpose. "How are they held so near death?"

Indris did not answer. He simply walked beside Loki as he glanced from one figure to the next. The next was clearly unique. A patched and sewed together assortment of different demon parts, with cybernetic components integrated with flesh. This demon had a large hole in its chest and its left arm was missing – surgically removed below the elbow. Loki looked down absently at the small brass plaque at the base of the pedestal. Adam.

"Where did you get them all?" Loki asked as they continued on. The room stretched on, seemingly forever. Loki noticed a pattern to the arrangement of the figures: On his left were the demons – the vampires and the classic creatures of evil. On his right, on the other side of Indris who walked beside him, were the humans, the lone pope, the kings and princes. Those who presumably fought the evil across from them. Where would he be placed in a room like this? Loki thought. "They weren't volunteers."

Indris made a small laugh. "No. Most of them were dead by the time my sources got a hold of them. I bring them back – just a little – so they stay... collectible."

"So they don't decompose," Loki concluded.

Indris nodded. "Exactly. My network of sources is vast. I take my collection very seriously. I'll pay top dollar for one of a kind people, demons and others. I even have an extra terrestrial demon. A Queller, it's called. Quite unique." He indicated the insect like thing on Loki's side of the showcase room, but Loki's attention was elsewhere.

Loki dashed down the line of heroes to one of the last figures occupying a pedestal. His mouth agape, Loki looked up at the familiar face.

With mouth open in a snarl and sword raised high, Alexius V looked ready for battle, as alive as ever. But from the scars on his brow and throat, Loki could guess how Angel had finished him off. "Who is your supplier in Los Angeles?" Loki demanded as Indris approached from behind.

"I only have one contact in America," Indris said, looking up in admiration at his Knight of Byzantium. His holy warrior. "His name is Rack. Low profile warlock who supervises the hands who actually do the work."

"Where can I find Rack?" Loki pressed, never taking his eyes from the crusader without a crusade, frozen forever on his pedestal.

"First things must come first," Indris replied. He bent low to rub a smudge from the shiny plaque then straightened again. "We must do business before I can speak to you as a business associate, mustn't we?" He slowly walked forward past the next figure to an empty pedestal. They were at the far wall of the room, several pedestals devoid of features. "Which means you must be able to pay me."

"What did you have in mind?" Loki asked, still shaking his head at the odds of seeing Alexius again.

Indris raised an eyebrow. "Not what. Who." He indicated the already engraved brass plaque at the empty spot. "For a volunteer and information which might jeopardize my source's confidentiality in America...?" Loki swallowed as he stared at the name on the plaque. "Nothing less than a vampire slayer will do."

---

Thirty Nine

3 January, 2002, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Loki held the phone's receiver to his ear. "Hello, boys," he said with all the good humor he could fabricate. "I've been keeping tabs on you — good work so far. Now I have something very important I need you to do." There was a pause. "No, our original agreement is still on... that's right: Whatever you want. But now I need something more..." he waited patiently as the Geek Trio considered this, then voiced their objections on principle. "No — you're right. There's nothing much more I can offer you than I've already promised, but consider this: The slayer is already your enemy. Kill her and you can all rest easier. Understand?" There was a very long pause. Finally Loki nodded. "Great, good. Someone will be along to collect her once she's dead." With a beep he set the phone back on the table.

Loki turned to Indris who stood with his arms crossed by the tallest bookshelf in the library. Loki cocked his head. "It's done."

The necromancer did not seem particularly convinced. "And your agents are reliable, are they?"

Loki shrugged. "As reliable as you are."

There was a long scowl from Indris which then suddenly erupted into a wide grin. "Magnificent!" He clapped his hands together. "In that case I expect we'll both part ways completely satisfied."

Just then the door opened and Oz entered, flanked by two servants. As always, their eyes were downcast and Indris ignored them. "Did you find one among the volunteers that is acceptable?"

"Three of the seven volunteers didn't actually volunteer. They say they were coerced into coming here," Oz reported, looking only at Loki as he spoke, in a tone just low enough to be insulting to the necromancer. "Two of the other four are vampires – one of whom is clearly insane." He stopped, remembering the encounter. "She told me..." he thought hard, "my gardener needed tending or the picnic would be cancelled."

Loki was shaking his head. "Vampires are unusable anyway. You can't exactly reanimate ashes — besides, without a soul there's really no point."

"Right," Oz nodded. "Of the two that were left, on of them was a specter.

Loki sighed. "That just leaves one. Any good?"

Oz raised an eyebrow. "Some monk who was very eager to be chosen."

Loki shrugged and turned on Indris. "Not a very impressive selection, I must say. Now we'll have to see if it's worth what we're paying you."

Indris nodded to the servants. They turned and headed out. "My servants will bring the monk to the work room. It may take some time to prepare us both for the procedure." As the servants left, the necromancer selected a book from the center of the tall book shelf, then led Oz and Loki out of the library.

"What are we paying him?" Oz whispered as he and Loki walked out of earshot behind the necromancer.

"We're giving him the slayer," Loki answered casually.

Oz's blood ran cold. He had to work hard to keep his face calm. "Oh," he said, his voice cavalier. He needed to find a phone.

---

3 January, 2002, Sunnydale

Anya slid the books one by one into their places on the shelf of the Magic Box. Something slid off one and landed on her shoe. Frowning, she set the book down and retrieved the small thing.

It was a small leather pouch tied with a drawstring. Tentatively, she undid the drawstring and brought the sac's contents to her nose. Inhaling and smelling nothing, she touched the inside of the sac with her finger tip and brought the stuff to the tip of her tongue. After a moment of contemplation, she made a disgusted face and pulled the string tight again, looking around for the display from which this mysterious item could have fallen. Finding no empty displays, she pushed a space between two vials of incense and arranged the small sac aesthetically.

Taking a display tag from behind the counter, she retrieved a pen and marked down in black ink:

Slightly Bitter Sand — $ 39.99

---

4 January, 2002, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Loki slowly opened his eyes. It must be morning. His internal clock always woke him first at about three in the morning, then at seven... ish. He wondered which it was. Oz was fast asleep on the next chair over. Loki stretched out with a groan. They were comfortable chairs.

Indris was still standing over the head of the table upon which laid the monk, his head in the light. The necromancer had a hand on the monk's forehead and both their eyes were closed.

Loki stood and began to pace, not noticing that Oz slowly opened his eyes. The conjurer's head was still sluggish to allow him to think clearly and he decided that it must be three in the morning. At least, three o'clock Tibet time. He only suffered form jet-lag when, ironically enough, he didn't take a jet but teleported instead.

With Loki's back turned and Indris' eyes closed, Oz slipped from the chair and left the room, heading back to the library and the telephone he had seen there.

Suddenly Indris' eyes snapped open. "I am ready," he said at last. Loki, now thoroughly distracted, turned back around without noticing his companion's disappearance.

"May I speak to him first?" Loki asked, peering down at the brightly lit, serene face of the monk.

Indris shrugged. "If you can wake him."

Loki took the sleeping monk by the shoulders and shook him. The man came awake with a start. "We're ready," Loki told him. "Now listen, you must observe carefully. Tell me everything and everyone you see there."

The monk nodded. "I understand," he said with a thin British accent. "But– I must ask for Last Confession. I really must insist." His eyes darted nervously between the necromancer and the conjurer.

Indris raised his hand to call a servant for a priest, but Loki stopped him. "No. My family got no special attention," he turned to the monk, "and I want to know where they went."

The monk's eyes grew wide. "You don't understand. I have sins– terrible-" Indris lowered his hand to the monk's forehead. With a scream of agony which drowned out the necromancer's chant, the monk's soul was torn from his now lifeless body and sent to whatever place would have it.

---

Oz lifted the receiver and began to dial the overseas code on the telephone. It was ringing.

"Hello?" It was Dawn's voice on the other end.

"Hello, Dawn?" Oz himself was nearly whispering. "Find Buffy, you have to find–"

"Hello?" Dawn repeated. "Whoever this is, I can barely hear you–"

Suddenly a hand came down on the telephone and disconnected it. Oz jumped as a pair of strong hands turned him roughly around. One of the servants glared at him as he set the phone back on the table.

"It is not polite to use the house phone without permission," Indris' voice sounded from the servant's lips. The servant stepped forward as Oz backed up, and two more servants entered the library, all of their faces now lifted, their lifeless eyes staring at the young man.

"I am very disappointed in you, Oz," the three said in unison, all in Indris' polite voice. "I'm afraid I'm going to now have to ask you and your friend to leave." The three servants roughly took Oz by the shoulders and led him stiffly from the library.

---

"Three... two... one." Loki counted with a raised eyebrow. "Bring him back."

Indris nodded and again pressed his hand to the monk's brow, chanting low and in the same ancient tongue. A pulse of light erupted behind the monk's eyelids and he opened them with a shriek of terror.

As two servants held him down, he arched and bucked on the table. Indris calmly drew his hand in circles, several inches above the monk's face, chanting in a higher pitch. Slowly the thrashing stopped. A dreamy expression replaced the one of terror and the servants backed away.

"What did you see?" Loki demanded, his hand on the monk's arm. "Who was there? Was there anyone there?"

The monk made a blissful moan and opened his eyes a crack. "Babies," he said dreamily.

Loki swallowed. "There were babies there? Children? Young people?"

The monk all but squirmed in delight at the memory of where he had been. "Mm, babies. The most beautiful babies—"

Loki and Indris turned as three servants dragged Oz into the room. Loki frowned and took a step towards his companion. "Where were you?"

Before he could answer, Indris put a hand on his arm. "Where he need not be. I find your business here concluded. You can find my contact, Rack, in Sunnydale, California. Please, now, be on your way."

"How did you do that?" Oz demanded, stepping away from the three escorts. "How did you know where I was?"

Indris' expression changed very little. "My servants," he offered a hand and all five stepped forward, "are lifeless corpses. I control them directly. They will see you to the door, and so: I will see that you leave. Immediately."

The monk rolled onto his side sleepily. "Ah, babies." Loki turned back to him as the monk's face clouded. He sat up abruptly and placed a hand on his stomach. "I am very hungry," he said with a frown. "Do you have any babies I could eat?"

---

4 January, 2002, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

As Oz brushed the snow from his jacket, Loki tried to shake off the headache that usually accompanied teleportation. Sometimes it lasted for days. Absently he brushed the Dutch snow onto the Chinese flagstones. Home again, home again, he thought, slightly annoyed at their sudden departure from Amsterdam, but also tremendously relieved to be away from that psychopath. As sudden and headache-prompting as teleportation was, it beat a plane trip in a pinch.

"Well," Oz began, tossing his coat onto Loki's cot. "That was... slightly disturbing."

"What did you do to get us kicked out?" Loki replied, annoyed.

Oz shrugged. "The important question is," Oz evaded, "did you get the information we came for?"

Loki sighed and tossed his own coat onto the cot. "Well, I know that child abusing monks go to some kind of hell dimension when they die," he drew his hand over his brow as the headache slowly faded. "And I know where Rack is — though I bet I could have guessed." He sat down heavily in the single chair before the glowing Dagon Sphere. "But I don't know much more about where people's souls go, or why." His eyes focused on the sphere. "And I really want to know."

A little smile played at the edges of Oz's lips. "Are you developing a work ethic?" He asked sarcastically, getting a poisonous glare back from the conjurer. Then the young man's smile faded. "Well, since we really didn't get satisfaction, there's no need to pay him what we promised, is there?" He waited pointedly for a response. "We don't need to give him the slayer."

Loki shrugged. "I suppose not."

Oz nodded, satisfied. "So, what do we do now?"

Loki swallowed. He knew what he was going to do. "You're going to go back to Italy with Jade. You've learned all you can from me without becoming as cynical and as sick a fuck as I am — to quote the immortal words of Jade."

Oz blinked for a moment, watching Loki watch Wilson. Finally the young man swallowed and nodded, stepping closer. "Thank you, Master Loki," he said sincerely. "It's been… Thank you."

Loki took a deep breath and slowly let it out. "It's your life, my friend, where you go with it is up to you." He found himself standing and shaking hands with the only real human being he could call a friend. He also found himself sounding just like Whistler as he gave the young man parting words of wisdom.

Oz nodded and released the conjurer's hand. After a moment of unspoken gratitude and respect, Oz turned and left Loki's study, though not for the last time.

Loki closed his eyes for a long moment. The headache came back with a fury. He remembered now why he was so fond of airplanes. He never got altitude sickness and he never got jet-lag. He would have to work on this problem. He expected he'd be needing teleportation quite frequently where he was going.

Back to Sunnydale — the home of so many things that bothered him. Now there was one more. According to Indris, Rack the magic pusher worked out of Sunnydale, coordinating a rather broad network of hands which collected all sorts of things for him and his boss.

Things, Loki guessed, that included souls. If the soul-trader demon had delivered Alexius to Rack —who then passed him on to Indris for quite a hefty sum of... something, since Indris didn't deal in money— then Loki could follow the train from Rack to the soul-trader demon and finish what Alexius had started.

That would also place him right where he needed to be for when the opportunity arose. And arise it would. Loki's hand caressed the Dagon Sphere. Things were moving smoothly.


	5. Chapter 5

Part V – The Plan

Forty

What If: 29 March, 2002, Sunnydale

Dawn looked down at the ashes that had been Spike. Xander stood beside her, glaring hatefully at the same ashes. He didn't offer a comforting hand or place an arm around her; he just glared down with contempt. Finally, the man looked up at the shooter.

Loki shouldered the crossbow and stepped forward. "I hope I didn't alarm you. My name is Loki."

Xander took the proffered hand and shook it warmly. "Nice shot."

---

What If: 30 March, 2002, Sunnydale

Loki shook the slayer's hand. There was nothing adversarial here. Nothing hostile. She was as glad to be rid of Spike as he was. Obviously the Geeks had failed to kill her — no matter. That saved him a phone call. She was of no consequence as long as she could be manipulated. "My name is Loki," the conjurer began, warmly. "I worked years ago with the monks of Dagon. I..." he summed up all the humility and tact he could, "I created your sister."

Giles dropped a book, quite accidentally. He blinked and removed his glasses. "You... er– oh, I see."

Buffy's grip was firm and certain. Naturally she wouldn't be sure how to feel. It would all depend on his motive for coming here.

"I'm afraid I've made a rather big mistake," Loki said, his face serious, his eyes honest.

---

What If: 6 April, 2002, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Dawn's eyes were closed as she meditated on the cobblestones. In the same garden she no longer remembered visiting years ago, she searched the sunyata for her soul. Unlike the others, there was no baggage here — no fear or rage or deeply woven despair. She had not been created that way. In her deepest inner sanctum, there was quietness: There was the girl who passed her hand through the reflecting pool and marveled at the fish. There was peace. The kind of peace that forever eluded the conjurer who sat beside her.

This was the way it was meant to be. No bottom, no jumping. No need to prove herself to anyone. Loki closed his own eyes as he sat beside her on the stones. There was no bottom here, there was no top. No uphill, no downhill, Whistler's words whispered. This was the way it was meant to be.

"I see it," she said serenely. "I- In the void, it's spinning."

"Drown out everything else, just let it spin." Loki's own kaya were as close to centered as they had ever been. Spike was gone, Hanna was here – Dawn, he corrected, Dawn was here where she was meant to be. Destiny had joined his side at last. Everything was perfect. The sound of the water; of the birds grew clearer and sharper than he had ever imagined. A little hummingbird hovered by one of the exotic flowers, its tiny heart beating in Loki's ears. The spinning in his mind grew faster.

"There's a light," Dawn observed, her face calm, her hands folded on her robe. "It's growing."

"Let it grow," Loki said calmly, the light in his own mind was growing as well. "It is self knowledge, inner peace. It feeds your soul." Beside him, even with his eyes closed, Loki felt her surpass him. The light in her own mind must have been brilliant, for she gasped and held a hand before her eyes.

Loki opened his own eyes and lifted the urn silently above her head, almost in slow motion letting the water fall from the spout in a glittering cascade. She barely seemed to notice as it splashed over her head and poured down her face and soaked into her robes. Loki's heart raced. Flawless.

---

10 January, 2002, Sunnydale

Logan sat alone in the small café. It seemed like years since he had tasted coffee. Nothing had ever tasted so good. The lights were dim and there was literally not a soul in the whole place.

This was no blood bar. It was an honest to god restaurant which served honest to god food. Bit by bit, the steaming cinnamon roll before him had disappeared. Now with the sweet taste still between his teeth and the coffee warming his hands and warming his insides, he could almost imagine everything was okay. It might be a lazy Friday night in eighty five. Hanna would be in bed and Rachel— his mind froze.

Whistler sat himself down across the table. "What are you doing here?" The demon asked bluntly. There was no easy friendliness, no knowing smile.

"Kayaking," Logan answered flatly, taking another sip of the coffee. "Can't a man take a vacation without being pestered by demons?"

"You take too many vacations here," Whistler warned. "And you're not using your air miles," he noted, somehow sensing Logan's distant headache.

"I think I want my lawyer if this interrogation is going on any further." Logan looked casually around the café. It was nearly closing time and not even a waiter could be seen.

"What do you know about prophecy?" The demon asked, taking off his fedora and placing it carefully on the table.

"We've been through this already," Logan answered dismissively, "I'm not in prophecies, no specter is."

"Quit being a narcissist. I'm not taking about you. It's not exactly a mystery why you're here." There was still no trace of amusement in the demon's voice.

"It's no secret," Logan defended. "And now it's not even impossible."

"You can't kill Spike," Whistler said with terrible finality.

Logan's jaw tightened. "That's all you've got? No threats," he sipped the contents of the mug, "no promises. Just an order that you seriously expect me to follow?"

"Not an order. I don't give orders. Just—"

"–Suggestions, yes I know," Logan shook his head. "For a supposedly wise demon, you remind me of a broken record player."

"You cannot kill him — prophecy forbids it," Whistler said quietly, leaning forward in a conspiratorial manner, even though they were the only ones present.

"I assure you, I can," Logan whispered, leaning forward to mock Whistler's caution. "And besides," he continued to whisper, "at best, Spike the do-gooder is a specter. He has no soul, so he's not in prophecies either."

"He is in prophecies –" Whistler challenged, "though you're right, he doesn't have his soul, yet." Whistler added the last word so craftily that Logan almost missed it. After an uncertain pause, Whistler sat back in his chair, suddenly finding the brim of his hat terribly interesting.

Logan was frozen to his seat for a long moment, his coffee cup half way to his lips. Something big was coming – he could feel it in his gut. Then Loki set the coffee back on the table casually. "You wouldn't," he said with some sense of relief. Even the Powers That Be wouldn't do that. It was senseless in the extreme and besides, it wasn't... fair.

But when Whistler continued to examine his hat, making no eye contact with the specter across from him, Loki felt a chill go up his spine. An enormous surge of raw power seemed to pass into him from nowhere, giving him the need to crush something big. To crush a mountain.

"You... _wouldn't_," Loki said slowly and forcefully, his knuckles white around the mug. There was a long pause while Whistler said nothing, but continued to pretend not to feel guilty. Loki's muscles trembled. "You wouldn't fucking dare!" The mug shattered in Loki's hands with a sizzle of enraged magic. Coffee and blood spilled out across the table top. Loki ground his teeth and ignored it.

"I haven't done anything," Whistler said reasonably, lifting his hat from the table as the dark mixture soaked into the table cloth. "I'm just suggesting that you cannot overcome the prophecy of Aberjian: That you cannot kill the vampire with a soul."

"There's already a vampire with a soul!" Loki exclaimed. "Angel, and that's thanks to me! Prophesy about him instead!" He furiously pulled a sharp piece of porcelain from his palm. Fresh blood trickled down his hand.

"The prophecy needs them both —two vampires with souls— and you've been playing your part up until now."

"I am nobody's pawn!" Loki hissed. "I can kill him –I've foreseen it." Even with the conviction in his voice, he felt the certainty draining away. All his hopes were falling through him like sand through a sieve.

"You've seen one possible future," Whistler's tone was insanely calm. "You've seen the future you prefer. Hadn't it occurred to you that the more you used the sphere, the more it would align itself to your desires? Why do you think it didn't help the monks when the Beast came? They'd used it too much — it was useless to them by then. Just as it is to you." The demon carefully replaced his fedora, tugging it snugly into place on his head. "There's only one force that guides the course of time and action, a force that no one controls, not even us."

The racing of Loki's mind slowed, the terrible surge of power pounding through his head now, pounding with his heartbeat. He bared his teeth. "Us?" he hissed, his eyes aching from the pressure in his skull, from the power that craved release. His veins were bulging on his neck and arms.

Whistler said nothing, but rose quietly to his feet. Loki jumped also to his feet, knocking his chair back with a clatter to the tiled floor. In the dimmed light, neither could see the other's face clearly, but the interaction of mind and eyes was unmistakable.

"You know, I realized something, a while ago," Loki said quietly, his hands resting among the blood and porcelain shards of mug on the table top, "about you, actually." Whistler was motionless. "I realized that a demon like yourself —doing what you do— is nothing more than a specter." Loki's eyes flashed and he lifted his blood drenched hands from the table, energy crackling between his knuckles. "A specter, who's fate... no prophecy foretells—" In a blinding flash of light, Loki brought this hands together with a thunderous clap – throwing Whistler forwards over the table inside an irresistible, invisible grip.

Hanging over the table before the conjurer, as some invisible hand held his ancient jacket's collar, Whistler's eyes were wide with surprise. Those wide eyes followed Loki's every motion as the conjurer slowly leaned forward, placing a gentle hand on the side of the demon's face.

Loki leaned in close by the demon's ear, the fury throbbing through every organ and vein. "In my whole life," Loki said gently, his lips only millimeters from Whistler's ear, "a life of mistakes and failures... my only regret," the conjurer's hand slid gently down Whistler's cheek, leaving a dark trail of coffee stained blood, "is that you won't go straight to hell." In one fluid motion he brought the broken porcelain mug handle from the table top and clean through Whistler's throat.

---

Forty One

15 January, 2002, Sunnydale

Willow sat perfectly still on the couch in Buffy's living room. Across the room, on the small table by the door, lay a small book, quite inconspicuous under normal circumstances. But not here and not now.

_Awakening and other Dark Arts_

Willow blinked. Her eyes were locked on the book. The Arts she had given up. Dawn still hadn't completely forgiven her for that night at Rack's. For the demon and the car crash. Willow herself could barely conceive of forgiving herself.

Dawn walked into the room without so much as a second glance at the former witch. She did give a glance to the book, however. Then, though she had looked to be going out —right; going out to Janice's again— she put the book uneasily in a drawer and sat down on the couch. It was the other end of the couch from Willow, but the gesture was obvious.

Willow slowly dropped her gaze from where the book had been. "Thanks," she mumbled. Dawn slowly rose and moved to the door, giving not a backward glace as she exited, headed towards the waiting car. Willow closed her eyes for a long moment. That wasn't the end of it, she knew.

---

16 January, 2002, Sunnydale

Kyle stood in the oppressive darkness of the alley. Somewhere to his right was his kid brother Brandon: The whole reason they were here.

Brandon wasn't here of his own accord, but then again, he rarely did anything of his own accord these days. Kyle smiled; having a slave to do your bidding was just too much fun. And now Brandon was going to do something else for Kyle; something useful for a change.

Breaking and entering, mischief and all that was fun for a while, but Kyle had recently begun to understand the real power he had with his control over his little brother. The power he had learned let him control his brother like a toy car, and there was so much more the world could offer someone with that kind of power than the spoils of a little petty theft.

Kyle first smelled the newcomer, a moment or two before the towering silhouette rounded the corner and entered the alley. Kyle had studied the kind of demon they would be doing business with, and was immediately impressed. The beast moving towards him didn't do his rendering justice. Tall and leathery-skinned, the demon sported two tall horns like a gazelle, and looked like an animal from any angle. This, apparently, was Klarr, the mercenary demon with connections. He was here tonight courtesy of Sean, Brit and Coulter, the 17th Street vampires who stood at the end of the alley, and at the request of Kyle, a lowbrow common warlock. Kyle- who had realized one day that he had in his possession something very valuable to the demon community. In fact, he possessed the most valuable form of common currency there was --- a virtual thousand dollar bill. And all he had to do was get someone to extract the precious thing from his kid brother.

That was where Klarr, the demon, came in. Like all Werlech demons, Klarr was gifted with the rather unusual talent of being able to extract souls from living beings. For this payment, he was willing to do just about anything --- generally kill just about anyone. Kyle had some people in mind and relished the thought of working his way up the corporate ladder, so to speak. Low-level spells and toying with the dark arts was for children. He wanted power. He wanted respect. Maybe he could even get his hands on Rack's job. He shivered with anticipation.

He heard the vampires talking to the demon in harsh tones, as if they weren't pleased to be involved in this at all. Klarr, for the most part, was silent, answering only in grunts and gnawing sounds as if they were conversing business with a bull.

Then Coulter, the leader of the trio indicated the humans at the back of the alley. Kyle heard the demon snort with disgust. He obviously had no respect for human creatures. Kyle was fine with that – he was no mere human anyway. He was a warlock.

The vampires continued talking and eventually the demon, his beady eyes now fixed on Kyle and his brother, pushed past the trio and lumbered towards the humans. Kyle steeled himself for the confrontation. The stench which approached with the demon was sharp and rotten. It came and went with the deep animal breaths of the creature who had tasted so much rot. Soon Klarr was up close and personal, towering over the young man with what could only be described as a glower.

"The blood rats want me to kill you so they can eat your brother," he said in a gruff, raspy voice, spoken from a deep throat, past a long tongue and between fearsome teeth. "I want what you came here to offer. And I'll kill them for free," he turned slightly to indicate the vampires who now began retreating out of the alley, no match for the towering demon.

Kyle smirked. So this demon would do business after all… Then they both felt it – a kind of hum in the air like an approaching electrical storm.

With a twist of light, the Werlech demon was silhouetted momentarily from Kyle's perspective and the huge demon turned to see a man in a white shirt step out of nowhere.

Without a word, the man reached forward, his hand mimicking the motions of some invincible, unseen grasp, clutching the demon's face and lifting him off the ground. The demon roared to be held helpless by an unseen force. The man shook his hand back and forth, the demon twisting proportionally in the air, growling in rage. Finally the man had had enough fun and reached up with his other hand, guiding another unseen appendage, and with a crack broke off one of the demon's tall horns. Klarr howled in pain. His cry was cut short, however, as the horn, banking in mid air, found its way under the demon's jaw and protruded up out through the top of his head.

Kyle watched impassively as Klarr spasmed and was still. The man in the white shirt dropped the lifeless body to the pavement and turned now on Kyle.

There was silence between them as each appraised the other. Kyle could feel the power the man exuded and saw how colored it was by the equally strong emotions. This man, Kyle realized, could be controlled.

"You killed my demon," Kyle said at last, stretching out his mind and forcing Brandon to step out of the darkness to stand beside him. He had this stranger outnumbered.

"If I hadn't you'd both be lying dead, your souls the main course at a banquet in hell." He glanced at the teenage boy standing beside the warlock, recognizing the vacant look there. A realization came to him with disgust. This petty magician knew exactly what to expect from the Werlech. Loki returned his hard gaze to the older brother. "What would your mother think?"

Kyle sneered. With no conscious forethought to warn the conjurer he faced, Kyle encompassed him in a haze of confusion. He could see the man in the white shirt blink a few times, trying to clear it, and meanwhile Kyle was establishing a mental hold on him; doing what he did best.

He felt a great deal of resistance as he began taking over the conjurer's mind, fighting past layers of rage and hate, but they were no problem at all. At last, he found his way into the inner chamber that was the conjurer's mind.

Loki stood, transfixed, allowing the young man to probe him and shuffle through his thoughts. He retained enough control to suppress the satisfaction of having fooled the warlock into entering his mind. As Loki observed from inside his own mind, he could observe the limits of the other's power, see what he could and couldn't do. This was far more valuable than instantly repelling the cocky brat from his brain.

Slowly Kyle sifted through the conjurer's memory, feeling distinctly uneasy as he saw the feats of power this man had accomplished: why had he been so easy to enter? Then his pride swelled up. He was easy to control because Kyle was stronger than this man. Kyle was above him – Kyle was more powerful than– He stopped, the feeling he sensed was sharp and cruel. This man was laughing at him from inside the dark recesses of his own mind: He was laughing at his pride.

Kyle grimaced, tearing through the memories and thoughts, looking for a clue as to why this man had come here, what he wanted or perhaps what his weakness was. Then he saw it. Saw her.

Loki stiffened as the image of Hanna sparked into his mind, uninvited, unwelcome. In their combined state, Loki felt Kyle's bitterness turn to cruel glee. Loki realized Kyle recognized the girl in his mind's eye. _Impossible!_

All at once, Kyle withdrew from Loki's mind, letting the conjurer collapse onto his hands and knees as he regained full control of his own mind in a wash of disorientation. The warlock had an evil grin on his face. Loki wasn't sure what he was grinning at, but knew he didn't like it. Frankly, though, he didn't like anything about this young punk; playing with forces he couldn't begin to understand, let alone control…

"Hey Brandon," Kyle said, pulling a photograph out of thin air as if he were a stage magician, "doesn't this girl go to your school?" Brandon, obediently, looked down at the picture Kyle had pulled from Loki's mind. He nodded.

It took Loki a moment, his eyes shifting with a frown before he realized what Kyle was talking about. He froze as it occurred to him who Kyle thought was in the picture.

The warlock looked down at the photo and whistled appreciatively for effect, grating Loki's nerves. "Damn, Brandon, she's fine… She's in your art class, isn't she? Boy would I like to tap that ass…" he suddenly looked down to Loki, still on his hands and knees, obviously fuming. "Hey, she's not your daughter, is she?" Kyle could feel the man's anger mounting. In his experience, magicians were least powerful when their emotions were interfering with their concentration. Control of magic took thought, not feeling. Kyle pressed on, ignorant of the frost which was spreading out across the pavement in tiny white tendrils.

"Hey Brandon, what do you say we pay this girl a visit. What's her name?"

"Dawn," Brandon replied, his voice devoid of emotion.

"We'll catch up to her after class and take her somewhere—" he gave Loki a pointed glance, "private." He continued on, his motionless brother staring into space. "She won't be missed for a couple of hours and we could even put a glamour on ourselves so she won't be able to ID us." A wide, hungry grin spread across his face. He'd used his ability to control for sex before, but mostly on old girlfriends. He had yet to tap the high school…

Just as his mind began filling with lewd images and imaginings, the sounds of struggling and the cries of pain, the figure on the ground before him lunged. Kyle had anticipated an emotional outburst from the man – obviously the father, and had prepared a small shield to deflect him. What he hadn't anticipated, however, was the ease with which the attack would sweep his defenses away.

Loki cut through the puny shield like a blowtorch through paper, tackling the punk kid like a line backer, driving him back into the brick wall of the alley. His hand were burning with fury, his feet were treading black ice.

Brandon stood motionless as his brother was lifted up by the throat, held against the brick wall. There was a sizzling and smoke was issuing from between the furious conjurer's fingers. Kyle had miscalculated. A thick fog was forming around the pair as the icy cold at Loki's feet met the steaming hot of his eyes and hands.

Kyle squirmed in the tight grasp; too short of air to draw on the concentration it took him to use his own power. This stranger wasn't playing by the rules: provocation was supposed to make the enemy clumsy and stupid, not more potent. Still, the burning of the flesh of his throat insisted this conjurer was at full capacity.

"Listen, you little shit," Loki's voice was hard as nails, "you're going to take your brother and go back home. You're going to stop controlling him and you're going to forget everything you saw tonight – especially _her_." Loki snatched the photo from Kyle's fingers, causing it to burst into flames and disintegrate. He glared poisonously into the warlock's eyes, daring him to fight back. "If I catch you messing around again, I'll let the entire graveyard know where you sleep. Got it?" He tightened his grip and forced a gargling nod from the warlock.

Kyle tried to draw more breath, tried to muster some kind of repulsion, but couldn't get past the burning pain in his throat. He clenched his jaw, his bitterness burning just as deeply.

Loki was about to let the young man down from the wall, but something in his eyes made him pause. He looked hard into the stubble-covered face, wondering what kind of neglect could produce this kind of creature. On an impulse, he forced himself into the warlock's mind, looking for any sign he hadn't given up yet.

What he saw astounded him. As clear as any What If scenario from inside the Dagon Sphere, Loki saw the future; the future if Logan walked away right now.

---

What If: 21 January, 2002, Sunnydale

Kyle giggled in anticipation as Brandon held the girl down. She twisted and thrashed with surprising strength but Brandon had his brother to control him and ignored any and all pain. He stared blankly at his friend and classmate as his older brother crushed a strip of duct tape across her mouth. Brandon was holding her wrists above her head with an inhuman grip as Kyle knelt on her legs.

A few more strips of duct tap later, Dawn was completely helpless, secured at the wrists and ankles to a shelving unit in a dark basement. As the adrenaline subsided and fear took its place, she recognized with a horrible feeling the hungry look in her assailant's eyes as he gazed at her bound body.

She twisted and struggled all the harder as he took a few steps closer, bringing his body close to hers. Kyle could feel her body heat through their clothes; could feel her fast breaths against his chest. It was exhilarating.

Brandon watched what happened next, participating occasionally, but feeling nothing. His eyes were blank while hers filled with tears of hate and shame. His face was blank as hers contorted in agony.

It was hours before Kyle was done with her, leaving her a naked, shivering form tied up now on the floor. Kyle stood beside his brother, staring down with satisfaction at the cold revenge he had exacted on his enemy from the alley. He smiled a cruel smile.

"Now it's time to change our identities – who should we cast as her assailants? Some police officers? That worked out nicely several times." Brandon stared blankly back at him. Suddenly Kyle's eyes opened wide. He snapped his fingers. "Her father! Of course," he laughed, "it's perfect."

Kyle reached into the mind of the huddling mass of abused girl on floor and searched for images of the man he had seen in the alley. Oddly enough there was nothing. He tested this by subconsciously showing her one of his memories of the man, but there was no reaction; she had never seen the conjurer before in her life.

Kyle frowned. He searched for an image of her father and came up with some interesting things. First he found vague reference to a father who had left when she was much younger, but much stronger, her feelings centered around one figure in particular: A platinum haired vampire. Kyle recognized him from several descriptions. Spike. Somehow this young girl saw a vampire as a kind of father figure.

Kyle was very disappointed that she didn't know the man from the alley, but he had no choice. He fixed the memory in her mind, intensifying the rape to proportions even he was not capable of, and altering his identity to that of the vampire Spike. That should fuck her up quite nicely. He then proceeded to remove his brother's presence from the memory and knocked her unconscious.

The warlock spent another two hours with her before finally dumping her unconscious body near her house.

It was Spike that found her first.

---

What If: 24 January, 2002, Sunnydale

Buffy had Spike cornered in his crypt, her stake feeling hot in her tight fist. As she stared at him, she felt revulsion. She had slept with… that. She had let it touch her, allowed it to love her… maybe even loved it back, when all the while it had been waiting, wanting her sister.

"She said it was you," the Slayer said coldly. She wasn't sure why she was explaining herself – either way Spike was about to die. She only wished there was a slower way to kill a vampire than a stake through the heart. She wished there was something he loved she could take away from him. Then the stake in her hand wavered. She realized there was something…

Spike had his hands up defensively, he didn't know what the bloody hell this was all about, but suddenly suspicion had swung in his direction concerning Little Bit's rapist. Spike had spent every minute since he had found Dawn hunting for the slime that had done this to her. He hadn't even been there when she woke up. And now, all of a sudden, everyone was after him as if… His eyes widened.

"I did _not_ bloody do it!" the vampire shouted, the thought making him angry again. "I _couldn't_ very well do it, could I?" He indicated his head where the chip was buried.

"I don't know how you did it," Buffy said with disgust at his attempts to deny it, "but she told me it was you – told me what you did to her," her face was a snarl and for a moment she considered dusting him. Then she took a breath and paused.

"I didn't do it Buffy!" Spike threw up his hands in earnest. "I wouldn't do that! I wouldn't hurt the Little Bit – or you like that!"

"Don't call her that," Buffy ground out, her jaw tight. "I don't know how you did it," she repeated, "but I believe her." She saw Spike ready himself for a fight, but she did not raise her stake. Instead, she took away the only thing he loved. She turned and walked from his crypt. "I never want to see you in Sunnydale again."

As she strode away from the crypt in the cool spring air, she heard him howl in rage. She only wished she could hurt him more. No doubt Xander and Giles would finish him off before too long. It wouldn't be soon enough. For now, Buffy needed to be near Dawn.

---

What If: 29 March, 2002, Sunnydale

Dawn looked down at the ashes that had been Spike. Xander stood beside her, glaring hatefully at the same ashes. They looked up to see Loki shouldering the crossbow.

"Nice shot."

---

Loki shuddered at the waiting future. He snapped out of the disturbing vision to look into the warlock's eyes with a renewed hatred. He was back in the alley, back in the dark. This man would not stop. He would do exactly what he had just shown Loki. Maybe worse.

The Dagon Sphere had even predicted it. Loki had seen the future, but only the pleasant bits. Only the parts Loki himself wanted to transpire: Spike's death, Dawn's meditation. The sphere had not shown him the cause of it all. Destiny, in its sick and twisted way, had thrown this wrench into Loki's perfectly established future. Loki's success, his vengeance fulfilled, was the result of Dawn's heinous rape. As despicable as Loki truly knew he was, he could not let this future exist. Destiny was laughing; laughing at his humanity. Laughing at having put him in this position.

This angered Loki even more. Fuel for the fire. He could smell the charring flesh now as his hand burned through Kyle throat. He could see Kyle's eyes rolling back, his lips swelling as the boiling blood rushing past his throat reached his face. The pain must have been unbearable. Loki only closed his grip tighter, crushing the life from this disgusting excuse for a… from this _human being_. Loki felt a sudden pang of guilt as the corpse dropped to the ground. That had been no demon he had killed. That had been a person. A vile and contemptible person, but a person. With a mother and a father and a brother. Loki stepped back from the gruesome sight.

Turning around he suddenly came face to face with Brandon, his now lucid eyes wide, looking around himself in a near panic.

"What the fuck is going on!" he shouted, seeing his older brother's lifeless body on the ground.

But Loki was gone in a twist of light.

---

Forty Two

3 February, 2002, Sunnydale

Loki stretched his arm out ahead of him, between the two trees. They stood like sentries near the front of the large abandoned lot. At least, it appeared to be abandoned. To his relief, Loki's hand rippled and disappeared.

Loki had spent weeks trying to find Rack's dwelling. After several tips which led him to different alleyways and empty lots, Loki had begun to think about a cloaked hideout. A trace spell had led him on a wild goose chase around the city before finally landing him here — naturally with a terrible headache.

No headache, however, could stop him now. Not because of determination, not because of the quickening he felt at being close to the end of this journey. It was elation. He had learned something, in these last weeks; something that he had never even considered possible before. Something was on his side. Whistler was dead. As dead as Loki could make him, and still Loki lived. He lived and breathed and continued on his business. No greater affront to the Powers That Be could Loki think of than killing their emissary, but still the conjuror lived. Something was on his side. And it was powerful.

Even despite the setbacks – despite Kyle and the future Loki himself had been forced to shatter, Destiny did nothing more than taunt him. Something much more powerful seemed to be on his side, averting or diverting any actual attack

Without a moment's hesitation, Loki stepped forward into the invisible building. Immediately there was a smell. The common smell of long unwashed clothes covered by a variety of cheap incense, cigarettes and pot. The musty smell of old furniture and old carpets lingered about those who sat or lay around the room.

Loki stood still for a moment, savoring the neglect. It was refreshing, almost, in its purity. Then he approached the nearest man. "Which one of you is Rack?"

The man's vague expression slowly focused on the conjurer in the silk shirt. "Nah," he said, distantly, "get lost, I'm next."

Loki frowned and looked about the room again. Near the back was a curtain covering a doorway leading to another room. He turned and started forwards, but the junky rose unsteadily to his feet from the couch and took the conjurer's arm. "Nobody goes in there," he said angrily, his words slightly slurred, "unless Rack says... and Rack says I'm next."

Loki licked his lips. Turning slowly from the curtain, he gently pried the man's hand from his arm. His expression was so gentle and his gestures so slow that they surprised and confused the junky, who just stood there frowning. Loki delicately placed a hand on the man's chest, reluctantly touching the pungent T-shirt. After looking calmly into the man's eyes for a moment and seeing only confusion and distrust, his hand slid quickly up to grip the junky's throat, lifting him off the ground. Holding him there for a moment, his muscles burning and his headache worsening, Loki finally let the man down where he gasped and sputtered and fell back to the couch.

Satisfied, the conjurer turned back to the curtain to find his way blocked by yet another greasy, stringy haired man. "Excuse me," Loki said coldly, brushing past the new bottom-feeder.

Suddenly he felt the man's hand touch his chest and rush of ecstasy drove into him. He groaned and immediately fell backward onto the floor, noticing that the stringy haired man stumbled backwards as well.

Slowly, they both rose and glared at each other. Loki was preparing for another assault when the man slowly smiled. "You taste like salt. Like tears."

Loki hesitated then realized with some disappointment that this must be Rack. "You taste like shit," the conjurer said candidly. He looked the warlock up and down then raised an eyebrow. "And you don't smell so good, either."

Rack laughed gently. He raised his hands and pink electricity danced between his fingers. He made a step forward and all the junkies retreated behind him, away from Loki.

Loki merely scoffed. "I can do that," he shrugged, throwing his hands out to the sides, a massive, twisting column of red and orange energy strung up before him. The junkies retreated now from Rack's end of the room, several leaving the building altogether.

The two magicians squared off for a long moment, sizing each other up. Finally, Rack clapped his hands together and his light show ended. After a moment, Loki did likewise. The warlock grinned easily, showing lots of teeth. "Shall we go somewhere more... private?" He gestured towards the curtain and back room beyond.

Once inside, Loki found himself confronted with a whole new set of smells. He didn't have time to analyze them, however, since Rack began speaking immediately. "I hear you killed Kyle." The warlock nodded appreciatively. "He could have been some serious competition in this business. But don't think I'm going to say thank you: he was also my best customer." He began wandering around the room, analyzing some far off concept. "Dutch man send you? To check up on me?" The warlock turned away and lifted a stoned girl from a chair in the corner, towing her to the door and shoving her out through the curtain. "He gets what he asks for and I haven't been hearing more than the usual complaints, so what's he checkin' for?"

"He didn't send me; I made him tell me where you were." Loki remained perfectly still as Rack moved about the room, adjusting pillows and straightening an ugly lampshade. "I'm looking for your provider in Los Angeles. The one who gave you the knight."

Rack stopped and frowned. "Armored fellow, tattoo on the brow. I was paid handsomely for him."

Loki blinked patiently. It was clear that this low life was stalling. Loki let the uneasy silence turn against the warlock, letting it drag on until he was certain he had established himself as a patient man.

"I'm going to do you a favor," Loki said at last, his voice courteous. "I know you don't deal in money or relics —which is too bad, since I have plenty of both— you deal in souls and magicks and death and..." he made a small nod, "lives." He took a slow step forwards and Rack took a step back, readying his hands for any kind of attack.

"Well, I have a life that's very precious to you," Loki took another step forward and this time Rack stood his ground. "One that you value more than all the corpses of the world."

"Oh?" Rack was trying to appear nonchalant, but his hands were trembling.

"Yes. Yours." In the blink of an eye, Rack found himself pinned high up on the wall, his head bent awkwardly to the side and his ear pressed up against the ceiling. He groaned weakly and tried to raise his hands but found they were bent up behind his back – out of harm's way. Loki paced back and forth patiently, below.

"Now, to be honest," the conjurer went on, "this life I'm talking about is really quite worthless to me, so I could just give it to you—" Rack sighed with relief as he slid a few inches down the wall, relieving the pressure on his neck. "—On the other hand I could just throw it away—" There was a moan as the warlock was forced back up to the ceiling, his head bending sharply to one side with a crack. "But it occurs to me," Loki said calmly, still pacing, "that this life might have some value to you, and so an exchange might be to my benefit."

"What do you want?" Rack croaked, breathing fast and shallow.

"Who in Los Angeles deals in souls? What demon, who hides in a church? What church does his hide in?" Loki allowed Rack a free breath of air, sliding him down until his feet were just off the ground.

"Our Lady of the Angels," Rack gasped, struggling against the invisible grip. "Disguised as a priest —I don't know his name— he's the one you want."

After a long moment, Loki let the man down. "Quite true, quite true." He smiled benevolently. "He is the one I want. And I give you—" the conjurer took a long step back towards the curtain, "—that life you find so precious." He held up a cautioning finger. "Don't spend it all in one place."

The instant Rack's hands were freed from behind his back, he shot them forward, red energy striking the far wall where, an instant before, the conjurer had been standing.

---

6 February, 2002, Los Angeles

Wethrin sat in his office, thoroughly pleased with himself. He had been given ample warning of what was coming. Those he worked for —like any decent employers— were rightfully concerned with their employees' welfare.

And so Father Wethrin was not at all surprised as a long haired man in a white silk shirt materialized before his desk. "Can I help you, my son," he said in his gentlest, more patronizing voice.

Loki raised an eyebrow. He considered the fact, as his headache began to lessen, that this young priest had just witnessed someone appear out of nowhere in front of him. "I think I'm looking for you," the conjurer said easily.

Wethrin offered, with a hand, the chair across the desk from himself and with a gracious nod, Loki sat. "What service can I provide a specter as powerful as Loki?"

Loki raised an eyebrow, intrigued. "Does my reputation precede me yet again?"

Wethrin made an apologetic shrug. "The description of your shirt precedes you."

Loki nodded, silently. "You are no stranger, then, to the arts— be they dark or... darker?"

Wethrin cocked his head at this dance of theirs. "I am, shall we say, versed in the occult." He leaned forward slightly and folded his hands on the desk. "In this city, I have found it is very useful to know the difference between a vampire and a Gentleman."

"Quite so, quite so," Loki said absently, reminiscing of his own encounters with the Gentlemen. He then began to examine the priest from every angle, as if inspecting a sculpture. "Quite a nice job, too, I must say. You would have fooled me."

Wethrin shrugged. "It is not my intention to make a fool out of anyone. I simply find this attire... practical."

"As does a praying mantis, I expect," Loki answered, calmly.

The priest made a wry grin. "And apt analogy, perhaps — and I forgive your pun."

"I didn't come here for forgiveness," Loki raised an eyebrow. Wethrin was silent. Let the dance continue. "How old are you?" Loki asked, studying the priest's face carefully. "I mean, how old is this costume you wear?"

Wethrin smiled. "This 'costume' will celebrate its eleventh year a week from now. Eleven years since I found my calling." He pondered the specter. "And how old are you?"

Loki's face became distant. "Forty nine," he said, realizing how old that sounded in his own ears. Fourteen years since... since he found his calling.

"And yet you don't look a day over forty," the priest replied, politely.

Loki was pulled from the distance and shrugged. "That's odd. The last time I checked, I didn't look a day over thirty five. It must be all the magic." He sighed. "Teleportation really takes its toll."

Wethrin nodded, sympathetically. "I imagine it would. I assume it is intrinsic?"

Loki nodded, vigorously. "I can't stand potions and powders. Even words are a nuisance. Wouldn't you say so?"

Wethrin almost laughed out loud. "You continue to assume I have some sort of power, beyond my familiarity with the occult. What do you think I am? Some sort of demon?"

Loki raised an eyebrow, perplexed. "Some sort of demon, yes. What kind, I'm not sure. But you said you were eleven years old, and there's no taking that back, my demonic friend."

"Oh, but you misunderstood me," Wethrin said, concerned. _Isn't this dance fun? _ his eyes seemed to say. "I meant it would be eleven years since my ordination: since I was born into the world as a man of the cloth. The interpretation was entirely your own."

Loki ground his teeth. "Well then, Man of Cloth, shall we proceed in the fine tradition of your institution's Great Inquisition? I threaten to kill you unless you admit to being evil, and when you do: I kill you for being evil."

Wethrin raised a cautioning finger. "But then you would never find what you're looking for."

Loki frowned. This dance was becoming tedious. "Which is?" he prompted.

Wethrin ginned, enjoying the moves too much to stop now. "Besides absolution, you mean?"

"That sort of goes without saying, doesn't it?" Loki replied.

"You want what every specter wants —whether they know it or not— and you think I know where it is."

Loki's face showed very little amusement now. "It's not a thing."

Wethrin shrugged, innocently. "What's not a thing?"

Loki shook his head gently. "You weren't... ordained until two years after I became a specter. You don't have what I want."

Wethrin leaned back in his chair, causing it to let out a creak of protest. The priest steepled his fingers. "Then why did you come here?"

Now Loki leaned back, scratching his eyebrow distractedly. "Rack told me where to find you," he surreptitiously studied the priest for any reaction. "And Indris told me where to find him."

Wethrin was now losing patience for this dance. "Am I supposed to know who these people are?" the priest asked, leaning farther back in his chair.

"I expect you're disturbed to know they gave you up to a conjuror, even under... duress. It's not a good employer who isn't concerned with his employees' welfare..."

Now Wethrin was disturbed. He had to work hard to hide it. He made a sort of contemptuous chuckle. "What makes you think _I_ work for _them?_"

A smile cracked on the conjuror's face. "Well, they were pretty convinced of it," Loki held up a cautioning finger of his own, "but I never made that distinction. I may have meant that you were not concerned with their welfare, considering I was quite rough on poor Rack. But now I know which way the paychecks go, don't I?"

"Interpret it how you will," Wethrin shrugged, "it makes no difference to me."

Loki smiled. "It should make all the difference, my friend. Now that I know that they work for you, I can hold you personally responsibly for the death of one Knight of Byzantium, who was working for me."

Wethrin made a small nod. "Ah, you see, now that I can admit to. He was hunting me —he tried to kill me— so I believe I was justified in hiring that vampire to kill him."

Loki let the grin spread across his face. "He was hunting you," the conjurer said softly. "Then you are the soul-trader demon." The dance was complete.

Wethrin thought about this then finally let a smile spread across his own face. He cocked his head in a mock bow. "You caught me."

Loki nodded his head in turn. "I'm a very good dancer. But you still deny having what I want?"

Wethrin shrugged. "I'm not a soul-keeper, and I must say, I apologize for underestimating you. I would have been very insulted if I were you."

Loki nodded, patiently. "I'm a forgiving guy. But that doesn't mean I won't kill you."

Wethrin shrugged. "I admit, I would be insulted if I was you, but I wouldn't attempt something so stupid as to kill me."

Loki laughed ironically. "Let me guess: You're a player and you can't be killed. Did Aberjian say that?" Loki shook his head. "Quite the mouth on that one."

Wethrin frowned. "It seems I continue to underestimate you. Now I really wish your reputation had preceded you. That way I could have killed you before you sat down."

Loki looked almost surprised. "Quite the violent Man of Cloth, aren't you? But it hardly matters. You see, I can't be killed either." He held up a hand. "No, not prophecy — I still haven't quite pinned it down, but it's powerful... and it's on my side."

Wethrin nodded decisively. "I see. Well, at the risk of giving me too much credit; it's not really as though I can't be killed, I simply feel it is in the city's best interest to keep me alive."

Loki cocked his head, taken by surprise. "Oh? Why's that?"

Wethrin tapped his black shoe on the floor for emphasis. "Beneath our feet... well, beneath and quite a bit farther down still, is a great cavernous stronghold, filled with all manner of demons and vampires and monsters. The church, you see, was constructed on this particular lot as a sort of half measure against their emergence to the surface. Consecrated ground and all. They have several access routes up into the city on this property, all of which I keep sealed with a dead-man's switch spell." Wethrin smiled proudly. "If I die, the spell vanishes, and all hell breaks loose. Literally."

Loki raised an eyebrow, impressed. "An insurance policy."

Wethrin nodded. "Exactly. A fanged, clawed, bloodthirsty, ten-thousand-strong insurance policy, not including the lawyers who set it up to keep my business running smoothly."

"You have lawyers?" Loki raised an eyebrow.

The priest scoffed. "Of course. Don't you? My employers insist we keep all our bases covered."

Loki held up a finger. "So you do have bosses."

Wethrin shrugged. "We all have bosses. The only thing worse than being evil is being evil and unemployed."

"Who do you work for?" The question came so fast that Loki bit his tongue in regret.

Wethrin merely shook his head. "I don't think so. Considering you can't kill me... or more accurately, you won't kill me, any information I provide is voluntary... and unlike the worthless scum who worked for me, I value my job and fear my employers."

"So they're powerful," Loki nodded, flaunting what the priest was giving away for free. "Go on," he insisted.

Wethrin shook his head with a smile. "Nice try. I would have told you they were powerful for the asking. I expect even if you knew who they were, you wouldn't be any closer to finding what you're looking for. I can't imagine it's still in this reality any more. Personally, I don't recommend you get any deeper into this city than you already are."

"Thanks for the warning," Loki nodded then leaned closed to the priest. "Now here's one of my own: Someday, sometime, I'm going to find a way around your dead-man's spell. That day, I won't tell you that your insurance policy has run out — so you won't ever know if you're covered. And eventually, when I get down to you on my list, I'll be back, and I will kill you." His face was polite and gentle, but his eyes were cold and as hard as diamonds.

Wethrin merely shrugged casually. "If you screw up and trigger the switch, I hope you have good lawyers, because everyone in Los Angeles will be after your head. And if you kill me, my bosses will bleed you dry, either literally or legally, for murdering a priest."

"What kind of demon are you?" Loki asked, ignoring the threats.

Wethrin shrugged. "I wasn't lying to you before: I'm not a demon at all. Just a priest with a particular talent. A human being whom the law holds tight in its embrace."

"And your bosses have good lawyers, do they?" Loki said scornfully, secretly probing.

If Wethrin caught on, he didn't let on, for he merely smiled. "My bosses _are_ good lawyers."

---

Forty Three

2 March, 2002, Los Angeles

Loki stretched out under the large tree. It was a beautiful spring day. And he was taking the day off. No scheming, no planning. Not even any hating. But more importantly; no meditation. A squirrel scampered past his feet. He smiled fondly.

Normal people got by just fine without meditation. And normal people, he was told, often had more stress in their lives than he did. After all, they had tedious jobs to do, financial problems to deal with, relationships to endure, death to fear —constantly— and every minute of every day: the anxiety of having a soul, worrying about what was in store for them in the end.

As the conjurer thought about it, his life was fairly straight forward: Kill things he didn't like, find the Key when it was ready for him, take the Key and get his soul. He'd worry about the anxiety part after it started to matter.

But the Key wouldn't be ready yet for another couple of weeks —dealing with abandonment issues as it was— and as for things he didn't like... well, he'd be damned before he'd let Spike... be damned. The irony of this was never lost on him. His quest was to get to the afterlife first, be it heaven or hell.

"Excuse me, sir," came a young man's voice. Loki looked up and found he was looking directly into the midmorning sun. The conjurer squinted as the silhouetted figure stepped out of the light. "I couldn't help but notice the... extravagance of your attire."

Loki looked down at his shirt, blinking away the green, blotchy afterimage of the sun. The white silk rippled innocently in the spring breeze. Of course, he thought, he had meant to cover it today, or wear a different shirt entirely. Be someone other than Loki today. Now as he thought about it, however, he realized he didn't own any other shirts. He looked back to the voice standing above him. Oh, crap.

The man looking down at him, while looking to be only in his early twenties, was most likely centuries older. He wore a white pinstripe suit over a white vest, with matching white shoes. Around his neck was a bright red bow tie and on his head was a white boater's hat with a red ribbon circling it. He carried a decorative cane in one hand and a long, narrow, antiquated cigarette holder in the other, the cigarette in its end glowing dully.

"You noticed _my_ attire?" Loki asked the demon, deciding his day off was over.

"Perhaps I should rephrase," the young man frowned. "It is impossible to miss the uniqueness of your attire." He gracefully brought the end of the cigarette holder to his mouth and took a small drag.

"Likewise," Loki nodded. "I expect you were looking for me. Well, you found me," he leaned back against the tree, getting comfortable on the grass. "Congratulations. Now go away." He closed his eyes and made all appearances of taking a nap, the man wouldn't take a hint.

"I'm not here to harm you, if that's what you're worried about." The demon took a cavalier step towards the tree and leaned an elbow against it. Though he looked comically like he had wandered off from some barbershop quartet sing-off, his every motion radiated confidence and grace.

"I wouldn't say I'm worried," Loki said easily, his eyes still closed. "I've killed bigger demons than you with a coffee cup."

The young man was silent for a moment. "I know. That's why I'm here to tell you not to worry." Loki frowned at this and opened his eyes a crack. "The Powers don't take revenge. Unlike you." Loki was now no longer pretending to nap. He sat upright and studied the demon anew.

"What do you want?" Loki asked, almost positive now that something or someone was watching over him. Directly or indirectly —he didn't care which— it had been able to keep the Powers at bay.

The man lifted his cane and spun it in an intricate circle, accompanied by a varying pitch of whoosh. When he was finished, all the while appearing casually bored, he took one long drag from his cigarette. "My name is Tory," he said at last, exhaling a long column of smoke. "I am Whistler's temporary replacement." He walked casually around the tree and came back to look down at Loki from the other side. "But I'm nothing like him." His face was pure serenity, but his eyes betrayed his true severity.

"How so?" Loki asked, keeping his cool and even finding he slightly admired this demon's composure.

Tory looked down at the conjurer with fierceness hidden behind a placid exterior. "I don't make suggestions," he said, his meaning all too clear. "However I do make deals. Before I was assigned this job, I was a corporate corruption demon. Black Monday? The Crash of twenty nine? That was my masterpiece." He took a long, nostalgic pull from the cigarette. "I was just about to bring down the oil industry when I was given this assignment, and," he glanced down at the conjurer, "one does not say 'no' to the Powers."

Loki was nodding thoughtfully then he stopped and cocked his head. "And... What, exactly do you want?"

Tory was not impressed by Loki's attitude. "To finish what Whistler has begun," he said bluntly.

Loki used the silence. Non-magically, it was often his greatest ally. He let the demon's words hang unelaborated in the air. Finally the conjurer raised condescending eyebrows. "And that would be..."

His plan had worked —so much for not scheming today— and Tory's calm exterior cracked. "To keep you on a short leash," the demon snapped, then immediately regained his composure. "To ensure," he began again, "that you do what is necessary before your time is through."

Loki ground his jaw. He couldn't stand the inference that he was being manipulated, especially by this pansy contralto. "And when will my time be through?"

Tory raised a patronizing eyebrow. "Shortly after you have done what is necessary, I expect."

"Which would be what?" the conjurer demanded, impatiently. "I'm getting tired of you — it's my day off."

"Then I'll leave you to your sitting," Tory bowed slightly. "But do not forget; I'm here now, as Whistler was often not. I'm watching you, as Whistler found he was unable to do... And I'm only temporary, so I don't feel compelled to befriend you." He turned and took several paces from the conjurer before turning back. "And lastly, and might I say, most importantly—"

Loki felt he was suddenly unable to breathe. A terrible crushing in his lungs gave way to a fit of coughing as he spat and vomited black ooze onto the grass beside the tree.

"—I'm immune to coffee cups," Tory finished, turning away and walking gracefully out of the park.

Loki caught the tree trunk to support himself as he gasped for breath, occasionally spitting the black tar from his mouth. His eyes were filled with the tears of physical strain as he filled his aching lungs with air. He should have seen that coming. Not that he didn't deserve it, perhaps, but it was puzzling that he had been caught so at ease — so defenseless.

Loki wiped the last of the tar from the corners of his mouth. Maybe that was this demon's real power, the conjurer thought; catching people at their most vulnerable — or perhaps forcing them into that state. What better tool to bring down corporate empires?

The conjurer spat again, just to get the taste from his mouth. Drowning in oil, how quaint, he mused. He would definitely have to kill this Tory. He could afford no one so powerful at odds with him. But not now. And not before certain other things took place. He absently waved his hand before his face, clearing the ancient smelling fumes from the other's tobacco. I hate cigarettes, he thought.

---

3 May, 2002, Sunnydale

"Everything always used to be so clear," Spike said despairingly. "Slayer. Vampire. Vampire kills slayer. Sucks her dry. Picks his teeth with her bones. It's always been that way." In the dim light of Spike's crypt, Clem gripped his chicken wings bucket uncertainly. Spike went on. "I've tasted the life of two slayers," he thought about this. Yeah, two. "But with Buffy..." he grimaced. The terrible thing he had done – the worse thing he had nearly done... but wait: he was a terrible thing. Since when was a vampire not a terrible thing? "It isn't supposed to be this way!" He finished angrily, grabbing the small gate and hurling it halfway across the room.

The vampire turned on the loose skinned demon. "It's the chip! Steel and wires and silicon!" He took a breath to calm himself but found no comfort. "It won't let me be a monster," his voice dropped regretfully, "and I can't be a man." He swallowed. "I'm nothing."

Clem frowned slightly. "Hey, come on now, Mr. Negative, you never know what's just around the corner: Things change!"

"That they do," the vampire scoffed, bloody words of wisdom! Then he paused. All of a sudden, Spike felt the words. Like a spark in his brain, more powerful than anything the chip could dole out, the words seemed to register. "If you make them." With an evil grin on his face, the vampire strode past the chicken toting Clem and headed up the stairs.

"You're— going out?" Clem asked, uncertainly.

"Yeah, got one or two things to take care of," Spike answered, his back turned to the demon.

"But... Nightrider?" Clem pointed to the television, but Spike was already gone. Clem shrugged. "Oh well, one born every minute." He sat himself down in a decidedly comfy looking chair and then realized there was no remote for the television. Troglodyte, the demon thought, getting up to turn on the old set. When he turned around again, he found an odd looking man standing near his chicken. "Er... hello."

"Good evening," the man answered, tipping his white boater's hat. "Might I partake of the chicken?"

Clem blinked. "Right, sure. Invitation's open to anybody." The loose skinned demon sat himself back down and unsealed the lid to the bucket, letting the pungent aroma rise to his nose. "Mmm... fried."

Tory looked down unenthusiastically into the paper bucket then stuck a hand in. "I heard you two earlier," he began, still standing as Clem's attention began to narrow on the small television. "You are quite the wise chap."

Clem looked up and nodded, his ears flopping. "Oh, thank you, thank you. I have many pearls of wisdom. 'A closed mouth gathers no foot.'" He stuffed a piece of chicken into his own mouth. "Though, sadly, it also gathers no chicken."

"Yes, I imagine so," Tory nodded. "I was looking for a particular piece of wisdom I thought you might be able to help me with."

Clem nodded, distractedly as the marathon was beginning. "Sure. I've got ears for anything."

"Well, you see, I'm still rather new at this. I was wondering," the suited man asked, "where Spike was going, and why."

Clem looked up in surprise. "Uh... well..."

---

Spike's fingers gripped the brake of his motorcycle. The engine purred for a moment, then was silent. All else was quiet. Even the crickets had given up their song.

The vampire pulled a cigarette from the pack and lit it, his lighter clinking as he shut it again. He didn't need a map to know this was the much-talked-about Janice's house. He'd followed a familiar scent here.

After a few moments, and nearly two cigarettes, Dawn appeared at the door. She wore a spaghetti strap shirt and shorts, which she had most likely thrown over her sleep-wear. She was barefoot and so carefully made her was from the front door, down across the lawn to the sidewalk. "What are you doing here?" she whispered, finding no such courtesy in the vampire's voice.

He took a long drag before he spoke, as if looking for comfort in the familiar taste. "I came to say goodbye, Nibblet," he said, looking into the darkness ahead of his bike. "I'm goin' away for a long time," he said, feigning calmness, "and I won't be the same ol' Spike when I get back." He took another drag. "If I get back."

Dawn crossed her arms, partly from the chilly night air. "Does Buffy know?"

Spike's gaze immediately dropped. "She's why I'm leavin'," he replied. He looked up into her eyes for the first time. "I've done something terrible, Bit—" the image of Buffy struggling under him in her torn bathrobe invaded his mind. The sound of her pleas. "Something terrible." He finished, ashamed.

"So apologize," Dawn suggested, assuming he meant his tryst with Anya, "that's what words are for."

The vampire shook his head sadly. "Not this time. She won't forgive me for this. It changes..." he looked into the darkness again, "it changes everything."

Dawn swallowed. The words were hard to stomach. "Does it change how you feel about her?" When he didn't answer, she asked again. "Do you still love her?" Through her pained expression, Spike could see many things, not the least of which was jealousy.

Spike decided to answer the first question. "It changes the way I feel about myself... changes the way she'd feel about me – if she felt anything." He looked away from her face. "Whatever we might have had... it's bloody gone now."

"So you're just leaving, then?" the girl asked, bitterly, spitefully. It was all she could summon to cover the other feelings. "So Buffy was the only reason you stayed in Sunnydale?"

"Well, yeah," he defended quickly, "originally, I came here to kill her."

"You know what I mean," Dawn said angrily, no longer caring that their voices were raised. One way or another, her mind reinforced, everyone leaves.

Spike's gaze dropped again. He knew, she could tell, but he wouldn't say it. "Nibblet," he said gently.

"Don't call me that," she snapped.

"Dawn," he corrected, "you remember a while back, you told me you were afraid – afraid that you couldn't be good, what with so much bad goin' on around you?" He took her sullen silence as an affirmation. "Do you remember what I told you?"

Dawn's voice was as cold and indignant as she could make it. "You told me that you weren't good either... but you were alright."

Spike nodded. "But I realize now — that's not good enough. It's not natural." He paused for a moment, tossing his cigarette butt out into the night. "I can't sit on the fence anymore. I kill slayers. It's what I do, it's who I am." His voice was firm, but she could tell he was silently pleading. Dawn was having none of it.

She shrugged. "I open portals to hell dimensions. That's what I do." She swallowed. "Is that who I am?" Her eyes stung now, all the old scars stinging just as badly. "Is that what I am to you?"

"Nibblet," he said gently, but she held up a hand to silence him.

"If you came here—" the words were like a knife in her throat, "wanting me to convince you to stay... You've wasted your time." She turned and nearly ran back over the lawn, regardless of her bare feet.

Spike blinked for a moment as she went back inside without a backward glance. "Goodbye," he said at last, less than a whisper.

The engine roared to life and the vampire sped away into the darkness.

---

Forty Four

4 May, 2002, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Indris looked down at the small paper card set atop the packing paper which filled the long crate at his feet. He cocked his head slightly then looked down into the crate. He smiled.

_Master Necromancer, _

_Considering the rather unsatisfactory conclusion to our first encounter, I feel it is not entirely suitable that you receive our agreed upon price. In place of the slayer, therefore, I offer you something much more unique. Perhaps the most unique being to die on this earth. Place him where you choose, since his affiliation is questionable._

_Graciously, _

_Loki_

Indris, still grinning, watched as his servants lifted the body from the crate, arranging it stiffly in a casual pose on one of the empty pedestals. As the servants stepped back, Indris himself stepped forward, reaching up and tugging the Whistler's fedora down into place over his shadowed eyes. Wonderful. Simply wonderful.

---

4 May, 2002, Los Angeles

Loki looked raptly into the glowing Dagon Sphere. It was the past. He told himself that over and over. It had happened: It was true. There was no interpretation, no 'desired' future. This had actually happened. Whatever the hell was looking out for him, it had just kicked Destiny in the teeth.

"_Not this time. She won't forgive me for this. It changes... it changes everything." _

Loki brushed his hand lovingly over the sphere. He nearly giggled in excitement as the image of Dawn storming away from the vampire flitted across the sphere's surface. Excellent, he thought, his mind charged with energy. It was time. The bastard had finally shown his true colors and alienated everyone. Now was the time for action. "Ha ha!" the conjurer laughed triumphantly, rising from his desk and reaching for his duffle bag.

As he turned for the door, however, his eyes narrowed. What the fuck was this? Tory stood blocking the door, resting his hands on his cane as if waiting for a bus. There was not a chance in hell this little peacock was going to stop vengeance.

"I'll make you a deal," the demon said calmly. "But first you have to assure me that we can both remain civilized. I detest corrupt businessmen."

"Get out of my way," Loki warned, his voice cold and restrained. There was nothing. There was no demon in his way. There was Destiny writhing beneath him like a wounded lamb and there was Spike sullenly waiting in his crypt to be killed. That was all. "Get out of my way, or so help me—"

"Who will help you?" Tory asked, intrigued. "You swear by no power but your own. You have no moral center to guide you. You have abandoned meditation. You are nearing an end." The statements struck the conjurer like insects did a windshield.

"I don't have time for you," Loki said forcefully, making a move to step past the demon, but a hand came up from the knob of the cane to block his path. "With no moral center," the conjurer spat, "I expect I will find it very easy to kill you."

"You're not going anywhere," Tory said calmly. "We still haven't made our deal."

"Tell me," Loki said angrily, "would killing a corporate corruption demon mean the stock markets would stabilize? Because I've been thinking of doing some investing. And being quasi-evil and all means I'm not bothered by a little... insider trading."

"Spike is gone," Tory replied, his voice even and confident. Nothing like Whistler. "He left the continent." He could tell the words were hitting Loki now more like bricks. "And I have no intention of telling you where he went."

Loki was breathing heavily now, the surge of anger rising as it had in the café. "That's your deal?" he nearly shouted. For a moment, he seemed to find a calm space in his mind. "You really are new at this, aren't you?"

Tory tilted his chin up. "I can't abide dancing around the truth. Spike is gone to fulfill prophecy and you'll not find him. That is what I came to say."

He seemed to look about him, noticing Loki's proximity, and looking like he wanted to leave, but Loki stretched his mind out, surrounding the two of them in his fury. The kaya that was fierce, that was red and sore from so much use, enveloped them and prevented the demon's teleportation.

"This," Loki said fuming, "is what I have to say." He stretched out his hand and found the demon's collar. Lifting him off his feet, he began to levitate until the two of them were very near the ceiling. With a motion much like an uppercut, Loki slammed the demon's head into the ceiling, causing his hat to fall to the floor below. The demon's fearful eyes looked back as Loki thrust up again and again, bashing the impudent man's head into the boards of the ceiling. Bits of drywall rained down about them.

"I say," Loki said through clenched teeth, feeling the bitter taste of the oil in his mouth —was that this demon's only trick?— "I say that if the Powers send any more fucking puppet demons like you to do their work for them–" Tory let out a whimper of pain as the ceiling cracked through around his skull, "that I might just go up there and dish out some serious—"

Stabbing pain exploded into the conjurer's stomach. He fell back to the floor, dropping the demon in the process. Landing hard and rolling, he was back on his feet in seconds, one hand gripping his injured stomach and the other raised to fire bolt after bolt of orange energy. Glancing down for an instant, he noticed a puncture wound above his navel. A red circle of blood was slowly expanding on the white silk. Looking back up, he saw Tory standing defensively, holding his cane out before him like a sword, it's brass tip red with blood. He looked even more ridiculous as he tried to snatch his hat from the floor without taking his eyes off the conjurer.

Loki threw his hands out and laughed at the ceiling. "This is what you pit against me?" The statement seemed to wound the demon's pride, for he charged —with a yell, no less— and made a swing with his cane.

With hardly a glance down from the ceiling, Loki caught the cane and in his hands it became as flexible as rope. Turning it back on the charging demon, he solidified it again and drove the now curved spear into the demon's stomach, feeling it protrude from his back.

Tory's eyes grew wide as he realized what had happened. He stood, frozen, his hand still on the knob of the cane which now bent solidly back and disappeared into his bloodied vest. With a gurgling croak, he slumped against the conjurer. Perhaps he had made a mistake taking this assignment? As he collapsed to the floor in a pool of his own blood, the conjurer's words sounded like distant echoes in his ears.

"Tell your task masters, if they should choose to save you now, that Loki writes the future."

---

5 May, 2002, Sunnydale

Loki appeared in the smell yet again. Unwashed clothes. Cheap incense and cigarettes. He hated cigarettes.

"What do you want now?" Rack demanded, lifting his hands defensively. Though pink energy sparked off his fingers, he knew he would very likely find himself against a wall if it was the conjurer's plan.

"I need to find Spike. I hear he's left. Where has he gone?" Loki was in no mood for torture the scum-bag. If Rack didn't choose to answer, then he would be killed.

"Who the hell cares about some vampire?" Rack asked, lowering his hands incredulously. "You want action; the witch is the one to find."

"The witch?" Loki asked blankly, the pusher's comment throwing him. "The slayer's pet witch?"

"Word is she's got power like nothing this side of darkness, I can feel her from here," Rack turned away and began rearranging stones on his sofa. "She's the important player right now, I guarantee it."

Loki shrugged. "And that means what to me? I want Spike."

"You want the vampire, I want the witch..." the pusher shrugged, "we've all got problems."

"Are you trying to make a deal with me?" the conjurer scoffed. "I could crush you like a bug."

"But how long will that rage last, Tears?" Rack asked, a small leer appearing on his face. "Even you need to recharge. Face it: it's guys like me who keep guys like you up and running."

Now that Loki thought about it, the fury that was fueling him was fading. The pounding in his temples that had lifted Tory to the ceiling was gone now. "You can give me more power?" Loki tested, knowing full well he was still capable of shattering this building with a thought.

Rack straightened with a grin. He moved toward the conjurer, his intensions plain. "You know I can. Just let me take a tour..."

Loki's hand intercepted the dirt-bag's before the intended assault. "Maybe some other time," the conjurer smiled condescendingly. "I'll get you your witch, and you find me my vampire."

Rack cocked his head. "Shall we shake on it?"

Loki considered that a moment as he gripped the man's wrist. With an annoyed frown, he landed his fist in the man's gut. Rack doubled over. "Just find him. I'll send her to you." He left the smelly place as Rack groaned, holding his gut.

---

Forty Five

5 May, 2002, Sunnydale

Willow walked along the highway. Exhaustion plagued her every step. There had to be a boost somewhere. The magic shop was drained dry, but there were virtually unlimited sources in this pathetic little town. The demon bars were full of lowbrow magicians — but they wouldn't provide much juice. She needed something bigger, otherwise the two remaining dead men might get too far away to track, and her revenge would never be satisfied — Tara would never be satisfied.

The she felt it. Like the smell of ozone before a lightning strike, she could sense it coming. Whatever it was, it was powerful.

Loki appeared on the shoulder of the road beside a car's abandoned bumper. Frowning, he looked up and down the dark road. There was no vehicle in sight – but there, just at the edge of vision, was a figure. He wanted to teleport, but Rack was right, he was getting awfully tired. The headache from this one displacement had drowned out his own thoughts for several seconds while he stood at the side of the road — and he didn't want to be worse off than that when he found who he was looking for. The fury was completely gone now and he was running on borrowed juice. He needed to meditate. That usually worked, though he had given it up for some months now, and he knew this was obviously not the time.

He began walking at a brisk pace towards the figure, noticing that the figure was walking now towards him. It must be who he was looking for.

They stopped on the shoulder of the road, some three meters apart, staring at each other — wanting the other for very different reasons.

Loki reached deep into his metaphorical bag of tricks, looking for the most energy efficient way of getting what he wanted. "He calls me Tears," he said carefully, peering into her tired mind, her troubled memories. "You must be Strawberries."

Willow said nothing, looking him up and down, deciding how best to use him.

"You're all worn out," the conjurer said matter-of-factly. "You're walking down a highway in the middle of nowhere. Are you just pretending to be a witch?"

Willow made a small frown, as if having to force her mind to make sense of his words. "Don't get in my way," she said bluntly. "I'm far from powerless."

Loki nodded. "Of course — and teleportation is so draining. I usually take planes."

"Why did you follow me?" she demanded. "I don't have time for you."

"I know what you're looking for," he replied casually. "I need it too."

"A boost?" She stepped closer and he felt a cold wind pass across him from her direction. He could now see that she was nothing like the Willow that Wilson had shown him. Her hair was black and she was altogether radiating a menacing darkness.

"Revenge," he corrected, taking a step closer to her. "You have been wronged, as have I." Her mind was open to his gaze now, letting him in. It was almost too easy. "Someone you loved has been killed in cold blood. I suffer as you suffer."

"We all suffer," she said quietly. "The whole world suffers. It's not right."

"No, it isn't. It isn't fair that evildoers are named innocents and protected from justice. It isn't fair that the powerful are denied by the weak what sole comfort should be ours."

"So what is a power to do?" the witch asked, taking an almost sensual step closer. "When our power is finite?"

Loki held up a finger. "Perhaps separately, our power is limited — but vengeance is truly the oldest profession, it is universal, as we could be if we would join together." The words were pouring out of his mouth now, spilling from his mind, unchecked. The closer she got, the more thrillingly powerful she felt, even in this weakened state. Together, he might not need Rack's help to find Spike. She could find the vampire — as he seemed unable to do — he could take them there, and together they could kill the bastard once and for all... The possibilities swam tantalizingly through his mind.

She stepped closer. Letting this single-minded conjurer into her thoughts was easier than she had expected. All her true thoughts, however, she kept safely out of his reach. He would have her as his ally, possibly as his consort; she would have him as a battery, a boost until she could find and tap someone else. She drew even closer, letting him drunken himself on thoughts of fulfilling his desires, then he looked up – dead straight into her eyes. She froze.

"You know the Key," he realized, his voice just above a whisper. "If we worked together—" his mind raced. The possibilities were endless. He saw in her what she was capable of: the power driven by a fresh rage that was nowhere close to diminishing. "Think," he commanded, taking a step back, distractedly. "In the universe, there exist many dimensions — many like this one, but different, all different." His heart raced with anticipation. Here was everything —and more— he could have hoped for, just waiting for him by the side of the road. Destiny was on his side now. "Out there is a place where—" his mind focused into a knife blade, slicing deeper into her mind than she would have liked, "—where Tara was never killed. Where you are happy. With the Key, that place could be your home — all you need to do is get there."

For an instant —a barest instant— Willow's mind opened to the idea; longed for that world... and then it was gone. Being there would be like being a in a dream: It would not change what had happened here. Nothing would. And only revenge would come close, would satisfy her.

"To get there, you —we— need the Key. I can't do it, but you can," his eyes lit up. No water, not quest. Just raw, unleashed power. "You can turn the Key pure again: Turn it back— "

"Dawn is my friend," Willow said calmly. "Why should I want to hurt her? To ease my own pain? Life is pain — no matter where I go, the pain will follow."

"I know pain as you do," the conjurer argued. "And revenge, I know, will only satisfy it for a short time. But the Key is my redemption. It is my final task— " he realized now what Tory had been meaning about him doing what was necessary before he was through, "—and don't worry about her. She's just an illusion. She belongs to me." Loki's voice was now hard and bordering on desperate. How could this witch refuse him? "Get me the Key and I'll get you a boost. I'll help you find— " he sliced into her mind, and a terrible thought came to the surface of his own, "–the others," he finished. He was unable to prevent the thought or the words that flowed from it.

Willow's eyes slowly grew wider. She knew. Warren and the others. She knew. Fresh, untouched fury boiled to the surface of her mind. "You," she hissed, her voice echoing and deep. "You sent them against us! You sent Warren to kill Buffy!" Her brain sizzled. "You had Tara killed." With the last reserves of power she felt stirred up by this rage, her eyes filled with darkness. "I'll take my boost now if it's all the same to you."

Loki stepped back as his probing mind was expelled from her thoughts. A cold, brisk wind picked up around them and a dense fog seemed to pour from where she stood. Their surroundings were now completely cloaked in darkness.

"Stop this," Loki advised, removing any trace of nervousness from his voice. "You're too weak to fight me – and I don't want to hurt you."

"Says the fly to the spider," Willow raised her hands, knowing she could support two, maybe three bursts of magic before she was completely drained, but it would be enough to weaken him– to get close enough to take fully from him what he proposed to share: his power.

Loki raised his own hands, suddenly unsure of the remaining strength he could call upon. He had never been tested in battle with a witch before. He closed his eyes and used his instincts to guide him. As powerful as she was, she might use simple illusions to confuse his eyes. Only his unseeing instinct of the direction of her attack was certain. In his imagination, he conjured the image of her to match where he felt she was before him: hovering several meters off the ground.

The suddenness of her attack took him by surprise. He found himself lying flat on his back with his forearms smoking. He had managed to raise them —almost reflexively— in time to absorb most of her attack, but now realized, as she descended to hover mere inches above his chest, that the attack had not been intended to kill – just to incapacitate.

Willow let her feet touch the ground on either side of his chest, straddling the conjurer. She lowered her palms until she was feeling the living energy respiring below her, like the warmth of a camp fire. But there was something about his stillness. Something not right—

Loki let loose on her, once she was close enough, sending a terrible wave of heat and nausea away from his person. She grimaced and was thrown backwards up into the air. But she did not fall back down. She hung in the air, at the extreme edge of his sphere of discomfort, massaging the air to bring forth a churning ball of energy.

Before she could launch it at him, however, he touched the gravel with his fingertips and sent a thin rope of ice-cold air snaking along the ground, freezing every stone it touched. In the instant it took to reach the position directly underneath the witch, she had finished her ball of energy and instead of hurling it at the conjurer; she let it fall straight down.

Loki cursed as the rising tower of ice, in which he had hoped to imprison the witch, was shattered by the falling sphere of energy. The maneuver had weakened her, however, since she started to drift downward, like a leaking helium balloon, until she stood firmly on the still frosty ground.

Loki raised his hands for a more conventional magic fight, orange energy crackling loudly between his fingers. She tried to smile pityingly at him, but only managed a sort of wicked leer. Before he could fully decipher the look, she raised her own hands and the energy leapt from his own fingertips to collect in a swirling mass of orange lightning above him. Finding his bag of tricks mostly empty now, in the face of her clearly superior fire power, he tried to cloak himself in darkness, closing his eyes and imagining that he was wrapped tightly and invisibly in the fabric of reality.

Willow was not so easily fooled, however. Feeling his dwindling power source not far from where he had disappeared, she brought the raging orange storm down upon it, hearing a cry of agony to confirm what her eyes told her. Only a smoking crater remained among the clouds of fog and frosty stones where the conjurer had been.

Oh well, she thought, there was always the grease-ball Rack for a boost.

---

Forty Six

The baby blue sky lapped at his ankles. It was cool and amazingly quiet. The horizon was invisible — there was no distinction between the liquid sky stretching out before him and the vast sea above. The sand worked its way between his toes.

A lone seagull sailed past, perfectly silent as it cruised ahead of the mist. Above the sky, beneath the sea. But... there were no seagulls on the Mekong.

Logan turned in the sandy shallows to see a long stretch of beach with dunes covered in grasses and trees beyond. A single figure stood several paces down the shore, wading to her waist in the misty waters.

Logan approached her, the sound of the water breaking around his legs the only sound there was. He found her from behind, noticing she was wearing exactly what she had been the last time he had seen her.

Somehow, it didn't seem off that this woman was wearing a long black skirt and burgundy blouse in the water. Ripples moved around the material of the blouse, soaking it half way to the midriff. Her skirt billowed around her legs as she gently drew her hands across the glass-like surface of the water.

As Logan approached, the water got deeper. He could feel the silk hanging heavily from him now, his khakis resisting his every step. But soon he was behind her, his hand reaching out for her.

Before he could touch her, she turned, her eyes and face everything that made him die inside. Her look: The most deadly thing in his universe. Time slowed to a crawl as her hand lifted from the water in a spray of frosted crystal droplets and struck the side of his face.

"_Rachel_," he pleaded as his head twisted from the blow, his eyes following the paths of the water droplets. Each one shifted and molded, from a perfect sphere to something else. Time resumed and he felt himself stumbling backwards, the water cushioning his movements.

Rachel stood perfectly still with the look that could drown worlds. "_Husband_," she said quietly.

He held his hand to where she struck him and lifted his eyes from the water that lapped about her waist. Before his eyes could meet hers, however, the world came apart.

---

6 May, 2002, Los Angeles

Loki awoke with a shudder and a moan of physical agony. With his last ounce of strength, during the witch's attack, he had teleported himself back to his place of security, his apartment, barely in time.

As his eyes adjusted to the dim red light, he felt his whole body burned and scarred. The witch had turned his own power against him and he now felt what he had intended to inflict. Maximum pain, maximum energy drainage. He had nothing left.

He rolled over and found that every surface of his body was red and swollen, as if he had been dumped in a fire. Every muscle movement was agony, every breath hell. If he hadn't been so depleted, he might have been able to heal the wounds, dim the burn, but every breath took all the mortal strength he had.

Somehow, between gasps of pain, he made his way towards the source of the red light. Wilson sat on his old desk, glowing immutably, impassively, as its master crawled towards it.

After long, strained, unbearably painful minutes, Loki was propped up against the edge of his desk, his pink flesh bloodied by the light. Through the cracks of vision penetrating his swollen eyes, he could just make out the scene of his battle with the witch, raging over and over again on the sphere's glassy surface. Someone had been using Wilson. Someone had been here.

"I'll make you a deal," the voice said from somewhere behind him. "One last deal, then it'll all be done."

Loki closed his swollen eyes. He had been caught now at his most vulnerable. He was more vulnerable now than he had been lying in the grass with his soul torn fresh from his being. If Tory chose to kill him now, there would be nothing to stop him. _So the Puppeteers decided to save you after all_, he wanted to say, but his voice was far from audible.

"One last deal," Tory repeated gently, stepping closer in the dim light, his stab wound now gone, and his cane restored. "And it will all be done." Loki couldn't even turn his head. Simply not moving was his affirmation. Tory turned away from the gruesome sight of the scorched conjurer. "There's something you need to do."

---

"Cronus, father of time," Loki's eyes were closed, a significant feat now that the swelling had lessened, thanks to Tory's ministrations. "As you were there at time's beginning, so you are there at its final count. Give me now the strength required to complete this task laid before me. Allow me to reshape, redesign and rewrite that which had been shaped, designed and written." The conjurer's hands were pressed so solidly against the sphere that all feeling had gone from them. The recitation had to be repeated three times now, the details worked out earlier by the demon from the barbershop quartet.

"This I ask and to you I pray: Let all remembrance pass away. Unwind the lines of fate you've spun; let a single wrong be now undone." Through the numbness of his burned fingers, he could feel the surface of the sphere give way. "Shield only my thoughts from my ministrations, let all others be swayed by time's alterations. Let my hands pass through time and remove just one soul, let them touch your design and your plan now control. Let tomorrow be different when I change today, this I ask and to you I pray."

---

4 May, 2002, Sunnydale

Warren strode angrily down the street. There was no one around to question his odd black clothing. There was no one to question his intention. If the other two were here, they would make some comparison to Lex Luthor, but they were in jail — right where incompetent criminals belonged. Only true genius got away with crime: took what he wanted without contestation.

There was much that Warren wanted. He wanted invincibility. He wanted immortality. He wanted to be loved and respected for his genius. He wanted what the conjurer on the phone had promised. He wanted the slayer dead.

The gun felt odd in his hand. So crude. So simple. That's why it was so perfect. There were no rituals or rules or loopholes with a gun. No orbs to smash. Mankind had found the simplest and most direct way of killing with deadly certainty. It could scarcely be improved upon.

He rounded the corner of the house and stopped. He could hear voices. One of them was her. His hand gripped the gun firmly. Then his eyes widened.

Dropping the gun and raising both hands to his throat, he made a strangled cry of confusion. His hands pulled futilely at the fingers which circled his neck. Two hands had come out of thin air and taken hold of him, squeezing and twisting.

He tried to swallow but could do that no more than he could draw breath. His face was hot as his veins were constricted. His eyes hurt and his lungs burned. He gave a choking gasp as the hands loosened for an instant to get a better grip.

Then the grip tightened again, viciously and lethally. Warren shook involuntarily as anoxia set in, his body using up the last of the precious oxygen in his blood. His eyes rolled back and his muscles tensed. Then it was done.

For a moment afterwards, the pair of hands held the lifeless body upright by the throat, to make sure the task was complete. Then they pulled away, vanishing into thin air, letting the body crumple into a heap on the grass.

And so it was changed.

---

"They're hugging!" Tara said excitedly, peering out the window of Willow's bedroom to look down at Xander and Buffy in the yard.

Willow smiled seductively from behind her. "Mmm, I like that idea." Her hands slid around Tara's waist and pulled her into an embrace. "Do you think they're doing this?" Her lips found the other girl's. There was a long moment as their tongues danced, simple tenderness in the touch.

Tara pulled back. "I hope not," she breathed, "that would make things... more complicated."

Willow laughed. "I guess you're right. Things are just about as complicated as I can handle." She took Tara by the hand and they strode away from the window. "I'm glad some things are simplified now," she smiled knowingly, her eyes locking gratefully with Tara's. "There's certainly something to be said for simplicity."

"Who needs words?" Tara sighed and took the other in her arms again. The kiss was deeper this time, and it didn't stop there. The bed bounced slightly as they landed on it together.

---

Loki looked down at his hands as they rested on the now completely solid Dagon Sphere. The asphyxiated face of Warren was frozen on the sphere's surface. But that wasn't what had Loki intrigued. The burns on his hands had vanished. In fact, he could tell just by shifting slightly that the burns all over his body had vanished. There was no physical trace at all of the battle he had waged against the witch.

He made a little smile. That's because there was no battle: had been no battle. He was back in control now.

---

Forty Seven

10 June, 2002, London, England

She didn't make more than a muffled squeak as he brought his fangs into her neck. He held her partially undressed body against the wall of the bathroom stall, drinking her in with long, hungry gulps.

Just then there was a pounding on the stall door. A few seconds later, another impatient pounding and an irritated voice. "Right, get out o' there! There's other blokes waitin' to use the loo!"

"I'm nearly through," the vampire growled, taking his lips from the succulent meal. He lowered his head again, just as the woman's body was going limp, when the pounding on the door resumed. "I _said_ I's nearly _through_," the vamp shouted, wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. "_Piss off!_"

"I'll piss all over you if you don't get your sodding ass out o' there!"

"There's other bleedin' toilets!" The vamp challenged, letting the body of the woman slump to the toilet seat.

"They's all backed up!" the angry man retorted.

Charlie thought about this for a moment as his face reverted to human form. "_Go fuck yourself!_" he answered, opening the stall door. Some skinny git waited for him outside. But not with balled fists and a curse on his lips: Unconscious on the floor.

A blond haired chap with a poncy white shirt stood over the body, dusting his hands together, satisfied. Charlie looked from the ponce to the git and back again. "Erm..." he murmured, a little thrown.

The blond looked about himself distractedly, ignoring Charlie completely. Finding what he was looking for, he laid his hands on the faucet. Charlie half expected him to begin washing his hands, so normal and unhostile were his gestures.

But he didn't turn on the faucet. It didn't work anyway. With some unseen source of superhuman strength, he tore the stained steel tap from the sink. Holding it as if examining a firearm before buying it, he shifted it from hand to hand, closing one eye and looking down its length as if testing for straightness.

Charlie opened his mouth, flabbergasted. He tried to think of something to say; some way to catch this bloke's attention, but the blond haired man was silent and ignored the vampire completely.

_Right, Charlie ol' boy_, the scruffy brit thought, _he can't go on pretendin' he don't know you're a bloodsucker, so you'll have to off the bugger._ He took a hesitant step forward, exiting the stall completely. As he did, he heard the body of the woman sink to the floor. Distractedly, he turned to see what made the sound. He looked for a long moment at the body on the floor, one of her hands still draped across the toilet seat. The universe was slowly ceasing to make logical sense. On an impulse, he strode back into the stall and flushed the toilet. The sound of the water being swept away seemed to stir him back into reality. Turning, his eyes didn't register the faucet until it had already struck his skull. By then, consciousness was already beyond reclamation.

---

12 June, 2002, Los Angeles

"You asked for me?" the man sat down across from the conjurer. "I'm a very busy man, so if you'd like representation, I can put you in touch with—"

"I'd like a translated copy of the prophecy of Aberjian. I was directed here." The conjurer was in no mood today for dancing or boxing. Time was short. He could not draw out his plan forever, nor postpone his 'final task' indefinitely.

Things had been put into motion. All of it was moving much quicker than Loki had anticipated. Not that it wasn't moving according to plan — it was just moving faster.

Tory had been good to his word: He had offered no future deals. After he had lessened the conjurer's wounds and provided him with the incantations necessary, Loki had done his bit – had killed Warren. If the Powers that manipulated this world wanted the Tara witch alive, there must be some reason for it. Some reason why Willow was not meant to become so powerful. What these reasons were was beyond Loki's comprehension, and likely beyond even Tory's. But for once, Loki didn't question. Killing evildoers was his talent, perhaps even as great a talent as helping the soulless. At the time of the final deal, killing was his only bargaining chip.

The man across the desk frowned. "I would be very interested to know who it was who gave up that information."

Loki made a little shrug. "A very unfortunate man of the cloth," Loki answered, "whose life insurance policy was terminated."

The man's stern facade broke with a smile. "Oh, him. And that would make you the infamous Loki of Tibet."

"Loki of many continents," the conjurer replied. _Was this Wethrin's boss? One of his bosses?_ A far reaching reputation might end up as a liability. "Do my actions, then, curry favor with you?"

The man laughed. "Not enough for Aberjian, I'm afraid. The translation is still a work in progress."

"I gather he talks about two ensoulled vampires — which is exactly my difficulty." Loki shifted in his seat. "I need to know the specifics of these vampires. Are there any defining characteristics which set them apart from other vampires — besides their souls?"

The man had grown quiet and his smile was gone. After a long moment, he spoke again, quietly. "Who told you there were _two_ vampires with souls?"

Loki mentally winced. He spread his hands as a kind of shrug. "Am I not infamous?"

The man remained silent for an even longer moment. "Much of the prophecy remains, as I said, untranslated." He paused, folding his hands on the desk. "One of the vampires is described as a champion — one who averted an apocalypse."

_Angel_, Loki thought. "What does it say about the other vampire?" the conjurer asked. Reaching into the lawyer's mind, he saw the man had no idea. He was obviously working hard to contain his surprise that Loki knew somewhat more about the prophecy than he did. _Two vampires?_ Whistler had been clear on that point. One was Angel and the other was Spike. Hence, prophecy protected Spike. Maybe Whistler had simply been lying, just to protect Spike. The thought made Loki shudder. If that was true, then Whistler had died for that lie.

"Just that he has a soul," the man lied. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a great deal of work to do."

Loki made a small nod. "You've been very helpful." He stood and without a second's hesitation, left the office. A few moments later found him walking briskly out the front of the tall building, past the large sign:

Wolfram & Hart

Attorneys at Law

---

16 June, 2002, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Charlie rolled over onto his side. The deal did not sound good. Any way he sliced it, it was bad news. Not that he could refuse the deal. It simply wasn't possible. Death or damnation? Wonderful options. The former allowed him to feed on humans one last time before he was dusted and obliterated completely, the latter forbade him from ever eating humans again, lest he be dusted and sent straight to hell.

The vampire groaned as the dim light from the distantly shrouded sun entered the window. He needed rest. He needed blood. He'd do anything for blood. Well... almost anything. "Five more days?" He said from dry and cracked lips. "If I's can go three more days, then I's can have something to eat without you's dustying up them floors?"

"You can drink pig's blood to your heart's content," the man in the white shirt assured. "Five days of tests. Not a single drop of blood is to be spilled in this room, or you're chopped up into many tiny pieces with metal instruments before wood ever enters your heart."

The brit groaned. "Yeah, sure. You sing the bloody song; I might as well dance to it."

Loki smiled gleefully. "Excellent. You have no idea how happy you've made me." Charlie merely looked back at him forlornly and without a single kernel of the conjurer's glee. "I can see that you really _don't_ have any idea." He turned to go and only glanced back when he reached the door to the small cell. "Buck up, old chap," he said with a mockery of the vamp's accent, "just keep a stiff upper lip and keep those fine teeth behind it and everything will work out just fine."

---

Forty Eight

17 June, 2002, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Tory stood by the small pool in the garden. His boater was pushed back from his brow to sit tilted on his head. A monk stood in attendance, by order of Master Loki, until the master himself arrived.

"Sorry," Loki said as he entered. The apology was empty, Tory could tell, but that was immaterial.

"What kept you?" the demon asked, turning to the voice and lifting his cane. "Why _do_ you insist on watching that vampire suffer?"

"_Know your enemy and know yourself_—Sun Tzu." Loki replied easily, motioning for the attending monk to leave. "What brings you to this part of creation?"

"My job is almost over," the demon replied. "At least, my job as it concerns you. I will be returning to my previous occupation as a corruption demon as soon as my permanent replacement arrives." Tory turned from the conjurer to look at the fountain and the water it spat forth. "I have an appointment with Martha Stewart and I don't plan on being late."

Loki waited a beat then shrugged. "You came here to tell me that?" After a pause, he looked around the garden then made an exaggerated glance through the archway into the monastery. "I know our decor is a little sparse... are you dropping a hint?"

"I came here," Tory said with a trace of irritation, "because somewhere it was decided you deserved to finally be let in on the game we've all been playing." To the conjurer's stone cold face, Tory shot an amused smile. He thrust his arms and cane outward to encompass the whole of the universe. "All of this —since the beginning— has been some kind of elaborate game." He frowned. "Don't tell me you hadn't guessed that by now. You've always known you were a pawn."

Despite Loki's aversion to the title, he kept his feelings in check. He was aware that something was watching over him. Something of epic proportions. Tory, like Whistler before him, was somehow more in tune to the unfolding of that epic than was the man in the white silk shirt. "Tell me," Loki almost commanded.

Tory sighed. "Not here."

Loki glanced over his shoulder, aware of the monks which strode back and forth, some of them in earshot. "My private quarters—"

"No," Tory shook his head. He stretched his arms out to encompass the entire lamasery. "Not here. It's not for me to tell you. I've only come to bring you to Him."

Loki's head tilted a little. "Him who?"

Tory's eyes sparkled. "Follow me." Without waiting for a response, Tory spun completely around, dragging his cane in a circle around him. Once he was facing the conjurer again, he set both hands on the knob of the cane and tapped it gingerly between his shoes. The floor inside the circle he had drawn vanished in a brilliant light. Tory dropped down through it as if falling through an open man-hole on a street.

Loki blinked. The portal on the floor began to flicker. With a curse, Loki dashed forward, jumping into the circle on the floor, seconds before it snapped shut again.

---

Loki felt the high pitched shriek in his mind die away and blinked away the bright light. He looked down to see he had landed on his feet. Under his feet, as he looked, he saw a brilliantly white marble floor. The swirls of grey in the stone made it look almost like he was standing on solid cloud.

He looked up sharply at the voice which called his name.

"Welcome, Logan Kilpatrick, to my home."

The floor, he saw, was only one of the marvels of this place. Endless rows of towering white pillars stretched off to some unseen ceiling where the purest white light shone down, dissolving any shadow.

The far wall was a fresco of infinite complexity, stretching off as far as the eye could see left and right, and spanning up into the sky between the massive columns. Depicted were throngs of characters, struggling and rejoicing, fighting and loving, praising and lamenting. As his eyes moved over it, Loki could swear the images were moving – never in the same position when he looked again.

Situated in front of the fresco was a broad dais with a pulpit of sorts and a railing, reminding Loki of a church of some kind. For a very brief instant, Loki considered that perhaps they were in heaven. Had Tory, a demon, brought him to see God? Did that mean there was a God? Higher than the Powers That Be?

The voice lit up with laughter. Not cruel, or even ironic, just happy – perhaps amused.

"No, Logan, I am not God. Nor am I one of what you call the Powers That Be."

Loki tore his eyes from the hypnotic fresco to the source of the voice. A short man, to be sure, shorter than Loki himself, stood at the pulpit. The man looked common enough: Silvery hair, thinning at the top, a tweed suit – then Loki shook his head with disbelief. He was looking at his own grandfather. At least, it seemed to be his grandfather. As he watched, however, the form changed – without actually changing, it seemed. Loki couldn't explain it, knowing his senses must be deceiving him as the figure walked casually from the dais towards the conjurer and the now kneeling Tory.

Loki glanced over and noticed Tory for the first time, kneeling with his head bowed. When the conjurer looked back, it was no longer his grandfather in a tweed suit

A young-looking man in ratty jeans and a black shirt with the silver letters KISS emblazoned across the front had taken his grandfather's place. Loki stared with wide eyes at the ghost from his past. The vampire Pearce, as real and glowering as he had ever been, strode towards the conjurer now, the familiar recognition and distrust Loki expected. But as he walked closer, the form changed again.

As the figure came to a halt before the conjurer and kneeling demon, it was another face from the past which had Loki struggling with his belief. Dark skin contrasted with a white silk shirt similar in all respects to Loki's own. A blue silk tie encircled the man's neck and his black pants managed to make the entire ensemble respectable looking, as Loki had never managed to pull off. Michael, the archangel, the guardian of souls, appraised the conjurer up and down in his quiet and unobtrusive way.

Loki was at a loss for words. His mouth hung open a little and he tried to make a sound, but Michael just smiled and turned away. As he walked back to the pulpit with his back to the conjurer, his form shifted again, changed without changing, defying reason or explanation.

Loki watched the figure's back as the figure grew shorter, long sandy blond hair replaced Michael's and the white silk became old worn black leather, punctured by bullet holes, knife and sword incisions and even burnt around the edges. For an instant, Logan was himself again, ten years younger and his heart tugged him the in the direction of the woman walking away from him…

But as the figure turned it was his grandfather again. A small man with silvery hair and a tweed suit. He smiled warmly.

"What are you?" Loki managed, recovering from his brief lapse. It was the only question he could think of.

His grandfather smiled. A warm and comforting smile he remembered from childhood. "What I am has no name in your language. In ancient days, I was worshipped as a god. I was Zeus, I was Odin—" As Loki watched, the man became the familiar form from art and literature of the brawny, white-bearded Greek god, then shifted into the golden-haired giant of a deity from Norse mythology. "I was many names to many people…" his eyes looked sad, "for a long time." He looked around. "This was Olympus, Valhalla… take your pick. Hundreds of names, thousands of years… millions of people."

_If you're not God, who are you?_ Loki's mind asked and something told him this person heard him. Person… creature. Good or evil? God or Devil?

Loki's grandfather closed his eyes for a moment, as if trying to remember something old and nearly forgotten. He took a step forward and solidified into tall brooding form of Angel. Somehow even in the light from above, Angel remained shrouded in a deeply troubled shadow. Never meant to step into the light. With dark eyes behind a penetrating gaze, Angel looked hard at Loki as if he had realized something troubling about himself.

"I can't remember," he said at last. "It's been so long… Millions of years…" a cosmic irony overcame him and he gave a sad little laugh. "I can't remember who I really am."

Tory looked up with a confused look in his eyes, seeing his master as something new for the first time. When Angel looked at him, though, the demon's eyes dropped instantly and he bowed lower.

"Let's have some privacy, shall we?" Angel cocked his head and Tory was suddenly no longer there. Loki did a double-take. Tory hadn't left: he simply was no longer there.

Angel sighed. "I do remember the early days though." He shook his head sadly and turned back to the pulpit. With his back turned, Loki watched as he became two figures he guessed were his old boss and his mother. When he turned back, however, the form of Richard J. Addison looked back at him, hard and disapproving. The old Watcher looked as though his justification was all that was required.

"Millions of years I spent alone," Addison said with a strained voice. "Desperately lonely. Abandoned in this desolate dimension with no conception of how to return. Trapped in this form," he looked down at his body, "as if I had ever had another." He looked up suddenly. "Just as you are trapped inside your form," he pointed straight at Loki's chest. "Eventually you become the vessel that carries you. The water dries up inside the vase and all that's left is the vase."

Addison turned quickly, a hand on his forehead, trying to make sense of his own thoughts. "I can't remember what it was like—" he sounded desperate, "to be anything more." The form was now that of Daniel Osborne, short and slight with short cropped red hair and a mysterious smile at the corner of his lips. "But it doesn't matter. What matters is what I am now."

_And what are you now?_ Loki's mind demanded, slowly getting used to the changes, the progression of the figure before him.

"Now," Oz said with a small bow, "people call me Clifford. Cliff, for short. I don't stand on ceremony." He thought about that. "Unless I do."

Loki blinked. "Okay… Cliff. What—"

"What's going on here? What's this all about?" Oz smiled. As he did, he became a bartender by the name of Felix who never really had stopped smiling. "Well, I'll tell you." With a now mischievous grin, he turned and indicated the fresco on the wall behind the railing. The figures began to move now, clearly shifting in a continuous representation of the story unfolding from Felix's mouth.

"When time had just begun and all the worlds were new, breathless and filled with possibility, the Powers That Be foresaw the coming of evil to the beautiful universe they were meant to watch over."

Loki's breath was taken away by the beauty of the images, beyond description, spreading from the wall, filling the room and shifting into his mind as if he were there. Indescribably beautiful landscapes, seascapes, starscapes – stretching to infinity in all directions, pulling at Loki's simple mortal heart, making him want to weep. Suns lifted and sank, stars churned through the blazing black, forests rose and fell, rivers sliced through rock, oceans devoured entire worlds.

"They foresaw that with the advent of life, evil would spring up in many of the places and corners of the universe, in worship or servitude of the dark stagnant absence left in their wake – what you call the First Evil. It is the anathema which life was created to conquer. To fill the universe with song and joy is to destroy the dark – but the Powers knew evil would find a hold in life, corrupting it and spoiling it."

Loki's eyes were wide as he witnessed the horrifying vision as it could only be truly comprehended: through the eyes of the Powers. Darkness as an entity. Death as a sound. Fear as a beast. Although oceans still crashed and stars still burned, all the beauty was stolen out of them. Horror loomed in every crack, in every shadow, tearing, fraying the masterpiece until there was nothing but a cruel mockery of existence left.

"And so before the evils had a chance to draw breath; before any life was started, the Creators created a second time. They created walls –barriers of reality to separate evils from each other and from the good. So powerful were the barriers that no living thing could cross them, not even the Powers, without exhaustive magic."

Loki didn't quite understand what he was seeing, but world pulled away from world, ocean from land and sky from stars. The universe suddenly felt much smaller, isolated and alone. Much more like the world Loki knew.

"As time went on, the Powers saw that evil was birthing and spreading faster and farther than they had predicted. Even into this world, once a paradise, evil was moving, spreading, and multiplying through gateways forced open by agents of the First. Wars raged for millennia between what you would call the forces of Good and those which fought them for control of all creation."

The conjurer was rapt, staring with no conception of the scope of the vision. He watched worlds burn. Civilizations, grander and more powerful than any on Earth, were swept under the marching boots of countless legions of pure demons. Innocents from ages and worlds forgotten were sacrificed on the altars of the First Evil, their blood the baptism of the dark, the covenant of the damned.

"The Powers That Be were heartbroken. Their beautiful vision of life was spiraling towards the fate they had imprisoned themselves in order to prevent. Their walls served now only to keep them out – keep them from coming to the aid of those paradises soon to be overrun. And so three of them decided to create a third time. They created, for their purpose, a tool of unparalleled power to move freely between the dimensions and across the worlds. They used it often in service of the greater good, traveling to those worlds in dire need, siring heroes and champions; inspiring hope and the will to fight the dark."

For the first time since the tragic story began, Loki's heart felt hope as he watched armies of spirited beings charging headlong into the oncoming darkness. Swords answered fangs, shields deflected claws, horns shouted down howls and light broke through. On countless worlds, in countless dimensions, paradise was being reclaimed, reconquered. Evil was once again isolated, confined to dimensions of hellish terror where it could only devour itself. Even as it seeped through, always finding cracks into the sunlight, the Powers were there to stir up those who lived free.

"Religions grew from them, passing stories of wars history forgot and populations dismissed as myth. The will to resist the evil long remained. But as the ages grew longer and the constant wheel of time spun round, the wars began to quiet. Less and less often the three Powers felt the need to cross the spans of dimension, in time and space. In their weariness, they decided to set their Key aside, hiding it in a forgotten dimension where none would find it. They gave it a form and gave it a life. And there it remained, all the while. Evil still leaked in, here and there, fought by good, outshone by the light, but persistently, patiently it came. And one day, scarce millennia ago—"

Loki saw the original form, a being human in no way, yet innocent as a child. Perhaps unrecognizable, yet to Loki, through the eyes of this vision, clear as day. The child, ancient as any myth, was suddenly hewn in two by a tall ghostly figure with two tall horns like an Earth gazelle. It inhaled, expecting to consume the soul of the small creature, after its fashion, but instead found itself overwhelmed by a brilliant green light.

"The demon took the Key and forged with it an army which could cross dimensions, slither from thought and memory like a nightmare, and hell was once again unleashed. It marched on many worlds, the Powers helpless to intervene. Fighting only for blood and unconcerned with the great power at its disposal, it struck out into the heart of every battle, fighting side by side with the horde."

Loki was suddenly struck by the familiarity of the vision. He was watching a scene which had only ever played out in his own imagination. A division of cavalry charging in the dark of night into a legion of demons. The cavalrymen were clearly human, dressed in twelfth century armor and helmets. At the head of the column was a man who looked vaguely familiar.

"That is correct," Cliff said with a smile and a familiar voice. Loki looked up from the vision to see Alexius the Fifth, in full battle gear standing by the pulpit. The fresco behind showed the raging battle with Alexius II, Prince of Byzantium, in the center facing off with the tall demon general which Loki also realized he recognized. The demon was struck down, repeatedly and carried away to the river. Encircled by brown-robed monks, the demon was separated from the green light.

"The Key was brought to this dimension," the form of Alexius continued. "And here it was trapped for centuries." The knight faded into the wizened old look of Haargan, the ancient monk. "Until it found you."

Loki snapped back into the vision. He was sitting on a park bench, his heart filled with sorrow at having watched the death of the last thing in the universe he had loved. Then a figure had strolled up in broad daylight and sat beside him. Tall and dark with skin like leather. And two horns—

"The demon had promised us it would find the Key again and continue its reign of destruction," Haargan went on, "and nearly a thousand years later it came after the one who would have it. Out of nine centuries, it was only a decade off in its calculations…"

Loki watched the demon inhale from him as it had from the child-like creature so long before. But the Logan Kilpatrick of 1989 had never heard of the Key, and all the demon drew from the grieving man that day was his immortal soul, leaving him gasping and lost in the grass and the bright summer sunshine. Loki's eyes were wide. It was all connected. It couldn't possibly be – but it was. Somehow, from every turn, from every glance, he had been a part of the long story that had ruined him. Ruined everything. And yet built him into everything he was.

"And then you took it and hid it again. And so it remains, to this very day."

Loki looked up to the face of Whistler, the fresco framing him an artful mirror image of the two of them standing in a glistening white hall, surrounded by a forest of white marble pillars.

Loki was silent for a long time, pondering what all of this meant to him. What it meant to Loki of Tibet and what it meant to Logan Kilpatrick. Something big was trying to communicate with him. Some terribly big idea was knocking at the door of his mind, quietly waiting to be let in.

With a rush of emotion, Logan Kilpatrick realized the Werlech demon had not taken his soul as payment – had not killed his family at his own behest. The demon had been after the Key all along. It had somehow known who would hide it – who it would appear to be, and had gone after them. It had seen Dawn and had gone after Hanna. Logan's heart pounded. And when it hadn't found the Key there, it had come after Logan himself. Nine centuries of tracking down the Key and it was a decade too early.

That miscalculation had turned Logan Kilpatrick into Loki – had caused him to become the man who would lust after the Key with such resolve as to even give it up for its own protection: to hide it where none would think to find it. And yet the demon had known ten years before. Logan's family – his daughter, had been killed for something he would do years later as a result of her death. A new emotion swelled in him, one he did not expect: Relief. Somehow, this revelation had relieved him of the silent, crippling guilt he had been bearing for a decade over his family's brutal murder.

Cliff sensed this without even asking and stepped forward, tipping his fedora as he took on a distinctively Whistler-like smile. "Do you remember when we first met?"

Loki instinctively knew Cliff meant when Loki and the real Whistler had first met. He answered with a small smile at the memory. The good old days. "In a bar in New York City."

"We fought side by side," Whistler said in earnest, his eyes boring holes into the conjurer. He suddenly stopped mid-stride, lifting a hand to his throat. Blood began to pour from Whistler's neck and he frowned in discomfort. He gently tugged the porcelain shard from his neck where Loki had jammed it, killing the demon, five months ago in a café in Sunnydale. "We were on the same side," Whistler continued as he examined the bloody piece of coffee mug, "and you did _this_ to me."

Loki was at a loss for words. He truly regretted having killed Whistler, but his mind was still reeling around the idea that his family's murder had not been his fault. He blinked as Whistler stared into him. As much as he disliked the demon and his cryptic double-talk, Loki missed him and began to feel as if he might have done something to harm his chances of redemption. And sending Whistler to Indris only added insult to injury.

When Loki could focus on Cliff again, he was staring at the mysterious form of Michael again. "Whistler was one of my most trusted agents," the archangel said quietly. "More so even than this being you once knew," he looked down at himself. "This being who helped you more than you will ever know."

"They were both working for you…" Loki tried to assimilate this, but it didn't quite fit. "But Michael was an angel and Whistler–" he turned to where Tory had been kneeling, "and Tory are demons. I thought they worked for the Powers That Be?"

Cliff cocked his head nonchalantly. "We all work for the ones you call the Powers. Do you think a mere demon or incarnation of an angel could converse with beings like the Powers?"

Loki frowned. "I hadn't really thought about that. I assumed the Powers could converse with whoever they wanted. Aren't they gods?"

Cliff laughed merrily. "They can't even find their Key by themselves. They need a conduit to relate to the world you live in." He looked down as if it were an unhappy admission. "I am that conduit. Whistler, Michael, Tory and a host of others do the bidding of the Powers That Be, but they work for yours truly." He looked up suddenly, the face of Michael uncharacteristically angry. "And you seem to be opposed to them each time they come to do my work."

"I don't understand what you want," Loki said in earnest, unhappily realizing that it seemed more and more as if it were Judgment Day.

Michael's eyes narrowed. "How could you understand what I want," he sounded determined and more than a little harsh, "when you don't even know what it is _you_ want?" He looked immediately to his right where a bright light shone between two pillars. The light intensified to blinding proportions.

_I know what I want--_ Loki's mind poured with sudden doubt over his goals as the light began to dim and a figure could be seen, standing motionless and vacant eyed. "That's right," Loki nodded, looking into the face of Dawn Summers. "I want the Key."

Michael shook his head sadly, closing his eyes and slowly looking to his left. There, opposite the girl, another light flashed briefly. Loki frowned uncertainly at the new figure. _That_ was definitely Dawn Summers. He blinked, slowly looking again at the first girl to his left. His chest felt tight and he almost wanted to break down and cry. He had looked straight into her face and not even recognized her. Standing to his left, the first girl wore baggy faded jeans and a baggy t-shirt. Long brown hair and a sweet but unconcerned angelic face. Logan Kilpatrick had looked straight into the face of his daughter and mistaken her for Dawn Summers.

Cliff watched, feeling Logan's heartache, as the man almost staggered towards his daughter, his arms outstretched and his eyes daring to hope. Hanna Kilpatrick stared straight ahead, focused on some distant point, her face a mask of quiet bliss as her father drew close, barely breathing, and suddenly drew her into a tight embrace.

Loki couldn't imagine how it was possible, the warm body he held tight against him wasn't an illusion. It wasn't some spirit or phantom used to torment him. Somehow it was really _her_. _How?_ The rational part of his mind demanded. He ignored it, but Cliff could hear his thoughts better than Logan himself could.

"It's not an illusion. It is her. How?" The form of Michael the archangel smiled sincerely, not from pride but from seeing his work making Logan feel something again – something other than hate. "Michael was there with her at the end. Michael had been there the whole time for that one moment when you could not be. He protects innocents from forces, like that demon, which threaten their immortal souls. That is his function, just as Whistler had a function."

When Loki turned around again to face the being he knew had orchestrated this, he had tears in his eyes. _Thank you_, he wanted to say, but at that moment, as he held his daughter tight, he felt, with a swelling in his heart as he had never felt before, her arms slide up around him to hug him back. The tears finally began to stream down Loki's face, hot and welcome and he closed his eyes tightly.

"This is what you truly want, Logan Kilpatrick," Cliff said, his voice resonating with the ancient wisdom which echoed the first and most pure dream in the universe: the dream the Powers had for their paradise. That dream still existed. Here and now it existed. "And I think now you can understand why I want what I want."

Logan slowly drew out of his precious hug, still and always holding his daughter tight. He looked with an uncertain and worried face to Cliff, now an image of Loki himself which terrified the conjurer.

Looking haggard and drawn, the Loki which had moments ago been a dozen ghosts from Logan Kilpatrick's past now walked sinisterly towards the other girl in the room. Logan watched as the image of himself seemed to stalk the young girl, approaching her as a crazed and confident murdered would approach his very last victim. The sight made Logan's stomach turn.

"I am alone," Cliff said, staring straight into the unseeing eyes of Dawn Summers.

Logan saw himself looking as he imagined he looked while watching Dawn from his red Dagon Sphere. It was disturbing to say the least. If Logan had had a soul, it would have been cringing at the look he saw in his own eyes. A craving so depraved it had no place in the eyes of any human being.

"I have no one to hold as you were held just now," Cliff went on in the thinner voice Logan knew he sounded like to others. He had heard his voice many times in the alternate futures he had constructed. "I have no one of my own kind to love or hold close." His voice was sad as he stared at the girl before him. "I can't be apart of the dream the Powers dreamt, because I am trapped here alone."

Logan's worry softened. His grip on his daughter's shoulders relaxed a little. He felt something now for this being. This player in the game Loki despised so much – perhaps the King of this chessboard – needed something, badly, from the lowly pawn. Logan had never thought it possible, but someone in the universe wanted the Key even more than he did. Cliff had directed the game for Logan's entire life – for the span of history for a thousand years, to acquire what Logan had decided to take for himself.

As Logan turned back to his daughter, her eyes now fixed on him with loving adoration, he swallowed. Everything was changed. Everything.

"You want to leave this world," he said quietly, knowing he'd didn't have to speak to be heard. "You want me to take the Key… for you."

Cliff turned around; looking through the sad eyes of the body he wore. His face, though a borrowed mask, answered the conjurer's question.

Logan looked down, thinking now as someone who realized they had now much more to lose and much, much more to gain. Looking back to Hanna, a realization came to him. Hanna was dead. She was dead and she was here. Michael had done that—Cliff could do that.

"Where was Michael," Logan said, his voice hardening, "when my soul was ripped from me? Where was the protector of souls then?"

Cliff cocked his head, his voice containing no pity. "The protector of _innocent_ souls. I think we will all agree that your soul was anything but innocent, even before you lost it." That said, Cliff went on. "Besides, your loss was the cause of your transformation into the person you are now: which, in turn was the cause of your loss to begin with. The demon foresaw your possession of the Key – and you made it come true. The loss of your soul, as clueless as you might have been at the time, is entirely your fault – caused by what you have done since. As is the death of Rachel and Hanna."

Logan swallowed, resentfully allowing for Cliff's logic. The guilt was there: laid squarely on Loki's shoulders, but still it was nothing compared to the guilt it replaced. It was, quite fittingly, an ironic guilt. Loki's ten year struggle to regain what Logan had lost had caused Logan to lose it in the first place. But Logan was not ashamed of it. Given the last ten years back, he would only struggle harder for what had been taken. In the end, it was the Werlech demon who was the enemy, not Logan himself. And Loki still had hopes for getting his soul back. Especially now that he knew his daughter would be waiting for him.

"If I give you the Key," Logan saw Cliff's eyes –his own eyes– light up with desire, "would you restore my soul?" Logan watched the eyes for the reaction. He even reached out – tentatively, into the ancient mind surrounding him for a preview of the response. His senses told him one thing, but Cliff answered:

"Yes."

Logan slowly turned fully from his daughter, keeping her protectively behind him. He looked pointedly into his own eyes, feeling his own strength. He was a father again. There were things that only fathers knew. "You're lying."

Cliff was silent, mirroring Logan perfectly. The brilliant white of the halls seemed to dim. The fantastic beauty seemed to shrivel as the dream of the Powers had shriveled under the nightmarish evil they had foreseen. The marble underfoot seemed cold and sterile, the pillars seemed like bars. Logan's eyes darted to the fresco where he saw their mirror image, but in place of Cliff's form of Loki was a towering creature of dark smoke and fear, rising up in anger against the small conjurer.

Logan's heart pounded as he looked back to his own face, the face of an unknown being of unknown power. He held Hanna tighter behind him. He saw the kind of smoldering rage behind his own eyes as he couldn't imagine he had ever felt. Not ever toward Whistler. Not even toward Spike.

"I have waited eight hundred and twenty nine years for this chance to leave your godforsaken world behind," Cliff's words were cold and resonant, less and less like Logan's own voice. "Do you think I will let you get in my way?" He cocked his head a little, examining the conjurer's thoughts. "Or do you think I am powerless? A mere shadow that whispers and dreams?"

In a sudden blast of light, Logan and Cliff were standing on the bank of an untamed river, horsemen and knights milling about, arguing and gesturing in echoing voices. "It was _I_ that first knew of the power that the demon had brought to our dimension. It was _I _who erased the battle from the minds and memories of all but the guardian monks. I could never let the Key pass to one of your barbaric empires: the kind which for millennia had slaughtered animals and humans on altars in my name. I _allowed_ it to be protected by the monks of the order of Dagon until the time was right for it to be unleashed."

In another bright flash of light, Logan and Cliff were standing atop a high, rickety tower in the dim light of dawn. A young girl could be made out tied to the end of a long platform.

"It was _I_ who imprisoned Glorificus in her human shell when she was banished to this world. I could never allow a pure hellgod the chance to steal what I had worked for ages to bring into my hands. It was by _my will alone_ that she failed. My will that made her mortal – that allowed the Slayer to succeed and save your little world."

In another bright flash of light, they were standing at the side of a highway, a black-haired witch staring into a smoking crater. Logan shivered at the memory of his sound beating.

"It was _I_ who pulled you from death that night, giving you back the strength to do what I ask of you now." In another flash, they were back in the white hall, Cliff's anger diminished somewhat. "Do what I ask of you now," he said simply, his voice gentler now.

Logan looked back to find his daughter still standing there. Whatever happened, she was safe. If Cliff couldn't give Logan his soul back, then he was powerless to harm Hanna. Some things yet were beyond this great creature's abilities.

Cliff sensed Logan's hesitation and turned sharply, approaching the motionless form of Dawn Summers. Although still staring ahead, entranced by the dream she must still be dreaming, Dawn flinched as Cliff brought his hand to her throat, gripping firmly. He turned back to Logan.

"I may not be able to harm your precious daughter," he confirmed, "but I can easily kill your still-living creation. Do what I ask of you or Dawn Summers dies and the Key will go to no one."

Logan's skin crawled. From the look he saw in his own eyes, he knew Cliff could and would do as he promised. Only one who wanted it as recklessly as Logan himself did would rather the Key be destroyed than handed over to someone else. For a brief instant, as Logan held his daughter close behind him, he considered calling Cliff's bluff. Then he looked for the first time into the eyes of Dawn Summers.

She stood rigidly, near, perhaps, to the point of waking up, with the hand of a demi-god at her throat, his hard voice threatening her with death. Her eyes stared forward, uncertain and showing none of the bliss Logan saw in Hanna's eyes.

"Make no mistake," Cliff said dangerously, tightening his grip on Dawn's throat, "we are all very much here now. I suggest you decide."

Logan saw fear flash through Dawn's eyes, but it did not remain. Instead something else took its place. Hard and mature, everything missing from Hanna's complacent expression, a resolute bravery filled her face. She squared her jaw and subtly allowed Cliff to get a better grip, come what may.

Loki blinked. Perhaps she was ready after all. She was so much more than he had created her to be. "I'll do it," he said at suddenly, holding Dawn's gaze as Cliff's hand relaxed.

"I knew you would," Cliff responded tonelessly, stepping away from the girl to approach his pulpit again. As he turned back, the form was one that Logan didn't recognize. A middle-aged woman with shoulder length sandy blond hair and a motherly look. Loki could not know that he was looking at Joyce Summers as she smiled sympathetically now at the girl who had been her daughter. "I have been preparing her to meet you. If you do your part, this will all be over soon."

Logan looked back towards Hanna but before his vision ever reached her, she dissolved in his grasp and his world followed in a blaze of light.

---

Forty Nine

Dawn looked around nervously. Things like this were only supposed to happen in movies. Or awful nightmares. First she had been in a brilliant white room with ghostly figures speaking in echoes, and now, with no context of sense or logic, she stood at the center of a broad pillar, rising high into a blackened sky. From far below, where the bottom of the pillar was obscured in darkness, mournful cries resounded. Her name was being called. Her names.

"Dawnie," Buffy called from below. Dawn dropped to her knees on the cold surface of the tower and looked down. She could see nothing, but the calls continued. "Dawnie, come down."

"Dawnster," Xander called from almost the exact other side of the pillar. "What are you doing up there! Come on down!"

"Nibblet?" It was Spike's voice. "What are you up to? Quit foolin' around!" But as her head moved from one direction to another, the voices overlapping and growing more urgent, they too became more distant. Without knowing how, she knew the pillar was rising, taking her away from them all. Too far away to hear or be heard.

"Dawn?" Giles called from below. "Enough of this foolishness. Come down at once."

"I can't!" she cried, tears welling in her eyes. "_Make it stop!_" She looked about her in panic as the voices grew fainter and fainter.

"Dawn!" Buffy's voice was sick with worry as she shouted from below. "Dawn, come down, this isn't funny!"

"Buffy, help me!" the girl screamed as the pillar drove higher and higher into the night sky.

"Daw-"

"-nster, get down here now!"

"-awnie, come on now, enough games!"

"Dawn if you don't—"

"Little bit's got erself into—"

"Da–"

"_Help me!_" she cried, collapsing back onto her elbows at the center of the column. Looking up into the darkness that sped towards her, sped past her, she heard another voice.

"_Daughter._"

Dawn's eyes snapped open. She was sweating. She lifted her head from the text book on her desk and slowly wiped her eye. Her lamp was still on. She must have dozed off. Her palm moved to her forehead to mop up the cold beads of sweat there.

"Dawn?" and the girl jerked. In an instant, however, she composed herself and turned to see Tara standing at her bedroom door. "Are you okay?"

17 June, 2002, Sunnydale

Dawn shrugged weakly. "Yeah, I just fell asleep and I think a chapter on organic polymers is now imprinted on my cheek."

Tara laughed, and shrugged mildly herself. "It could be worse. It could be some embarrassing chapter on anatomy." There was a pause while they both chuckled. Finally the witch raised an eyebrow. "You sure you're okay? You look sort of... pale."

Dawn dismissed this, more aggressively than she had intended. "It's just the lamplight. And..." she added when she saw that Tara was about to accept her lame-ass excuse, "and this kinda... creepy dream I just had."

Tara was silent for a moment then looked down at the floor. "Can I come in?"

Dawn looked confused for a moment then remembered Tara's incessant politeness. "Oh, yeah, sure." She furrowed her brow when the older girl closed the door behind her before sitting down on the barely made bed. "You know stuff about dreams, right?" Dawn asked, shifting in her chair to face the witch. "I mean, like in a magicky, wicca-wisdom kinda way?"

Tara laughed. It was sweet and pure. "A little." She made a little shrug. "I know that when I have bad dreams, I like to talk to someone about them. I don't need wicca-wisdom to tell me that the dreams go away faster that way."

Dawn shifted uneasily. "B- but what if..." she searched for the words, "w- what if your dream is trying to tell you something. What if it isn't supposed to go away?"

"All dreams are trying to tell you something," Tara answered. "Sometimes, it's 'Hey, you've got one sexy redhead laying next to you-'" she stopped herself as Dawn's eyebrows went up. "O- or sometimes it's 'You've nearly got bitten by a vampire, quit taking so many risks!' Even stupid dreams or funny dreams. They all tell you something." She waited a moment for a reaction, but Dawn merely sat, pondering. "What do you think this dream was trying to tell you?"

"Not so much the sexy redhead," the teen said quietly. "I- it was like..." she grappled with the single overwhelming feeling that followed her from her dream state. "It was like I was leaving everyone else behind. I was going somewhere, and they couldn't follow." The feeling only got more poignant as she vocalized it. "I- I wanted them to follow— I didn't want to go. But they couldn't get to me." She felt her throat tighten. "It sucked. Big time."

Tara made a weak smile. "I bet. If I were to get all wicca-wise on you, I'd be sitting here telling you right now that what you had was a signpost dream."

"A- as in like 'pedestrian crossing' dream?" Dawn raised a skeptical eyebrow.

Tara's smile grew. "A signpost dream lets you know that somewhere inside you, you've been divided. Your unconscious isn't sure which way to go, and it's trying to tell you to make up your mind already. A wicca-wise person would be telling you that the dream was a manifestation of one of the paths laid before you. One that means leaving everyone else behind, either socially, physically, spiritually... or pretty much anything. It's that path that scares you."

"Why does this sound like a hypothetical conversation?" Dawn asked, frowning. "You keep saying 'a wicca-wise person _would_ be saying...' You and Willow are the two most wicca-wise people on the planet, practically."

Tara's smile faded. "I wouldn't say that. I just know that telling people for sure what their dreams mean is a dangerous hobby. I could tell you that you'll be going on some kind of quest eventually, to try to resolve the split inside you, but that might just end up causing all kinds of trouble." She stopped suddenly. "Tha- that's not what I meant," she said quickly, her eyes wide. "I- I only mean you may have to do a little soul searching—" she jerked her head, as if censuring herself mentally, "–I m-mean a w-wicca-wise person m-might tell you to–"

"It's okay," Dawn said frowning. "I get it. You didn't say anything, and I heard nothing."

Relief flooded over the witch's expression. She nodded and finally stood. "Willow and I are going out tonight," she glanced at the text book, "study hard," she added with mock sternness. Then with a smile she opened the door and left.

Dawn turned back to the desk. The words were slowly coming into focus on the page, but soon drowsiness was gnawing at her again. Within half an hour, she was tucked into bed, sound asleep.

---

18 June, 2002, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Loki looked out the narrow window of his chamber at the stunning mountains. Mountains that few would ever truly appreciate as the awe-inspiring things they were. Yet they were nothing compared to the beauty of the dream Loki had witnessed last night. The dream the Powers had for the universe. Their paradise.

And it was all lining up against him – threatening to take away his future as it had taken away his past. But Loki was a pawn no longer. He was a player now, and he had moves of his own to make, pawns of his own to command.

The conjurer turned back to the glowing red sphere on his desk. On it played out scene he had been preoccupied with for the last six hours. If Cliff did his part, Dawn would find her way to Los Angeles very soon. Soon after, Loki would take over and steer her on the final leg of the journey that was her life as the Key.

There was a snag, however, in the perfect plan. Loki cursed: the plan _had_ been perfect. He had seen it with his own two eyes. All that he had been required to do was walk away; allow Dawn to be raped. He would then kill Spike and Dawn was his for the taking. But he couldn't do it. He understood now more and more how the girl who truly wasn't his daughter brought out the humanity in him. She had been given the barest nothing in this life: two years' worth of real living, no soul, the curse of the Key, and just to rub it in, she knew all of it. She knew she wasn't complete. And yet, she was as much a human as Loki had ever seen. No copy or… he blinked. No Specter was she. He thought about this for a long hard moment, his eyes searching back and forth for the hidden truth of it…

The scene on Wilson's glassy surface caught his attention again. _Spike._ It was this vampire he loathed which was the snag in his plan. Each time now that he developed a future which resulted in his acquisition of the Key, Spike was always there. Before Loki could take the Key from the ceremonial water, Spike was there – somehow he was always there to keep the Key out of Loki's hands. The last resort of Cliff, Loki had no doubt. And with a prophecy protecting Spike as one of the ensoulled vampires, Loki could no longer find a future where Spike could be killed. And yet…

A small sneer crept onto the corner of the conjurer's lips: Loki had a secret weapon.

---

19 June, 2002, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Charlie stared through crazed eyes at the girl cowering in the corner. He couldn't force his face back to its human form, as he would very much like to do, since its effect on her only increased her appeal. He could hear her heart beat, like a frightened rabbit. He could smell her sweat, taste her terror.

But he would not feed. Two more days and he would be home free. Some sacred mumbo jumbo, then carte blanche for all the blood he could drink. All the... blood... He began to salivate unconsciously. The girl whimpered.

The monk stood beside Loki on the other side of the heavy wooden door. "What is the purpose of these tests?" the monk asked. It was not impertinence, nor was it even irritating. This was a learning opportunity for young monks who wanted to learn the ways of the sick and twisted, but also the crafty and cunning.

"The illusion of the girl is meant to acclimatize him to a victim's presence. I want to know now if he can handle himself before we introduce real... people." Loki stood with his arms crossed, staring through the slit in the door. Time was running short. He had places to be, things to arrange... He knew Cliff would not spare him much time for his side-schemes. Dawn would be ready soon.

The monk nodded absently, also staring through the door. "What if he only manages to hold his composure _until_ real people are introduced?"

Loki raised an eyebrow. "I never said there wasn't risk involved."

---

This would be tricky, thought the man in the white silk shirt. How do you get a vampire to want a soul? Really want it? How do you get _anyone_ to know they want a soul; or even don't have one?

Finally, as he looked down at the sprawled out body of the brit on the floor, Loki sighed. Simple minds were simple problems. Simple problems often required simple solutions. Almost... Pavlovian solutions...

"Charlie," Loki said gently, nudging the sleeping form with his shoe. "Blood, Charlie... Charlie: _Blood_." The vampire stiffened and murmured in his sleep. Loki smiled. "Mmm, delicious, warm blood."

"Mmm," Charlie moaned, his tongue running across his teeth.

"Mmm, soul," the conjurer went on. "_Soul_, mmm..." he toned it to mimic the vampire's hungry moan. "Soul and all the delicious blood there is. Mmm, warm, delicious soul."

"Mmm, soul," the vamp crooned. Then he awoke with a start. He blinked for a moment, looking up at the conjurer with a confused expression. Then the water hit his face and he screamed with agony.

Loki stood over him with the empty paper cup in his hand. He nodded, satisfied, as the vampire writhed and twisted in the glow of the light from his own eyes. Before the writhing and glowing had faded, Loki turned and left the cell, closing the heavy door to speak to the monk waiting on the other side. "And then there were three."

"Three sir?" the monk asked uncertainly, but Loki waved him off.

"I'll be in America until further notice. See that everything is prepared." The monk bowed and Loki turned to leave but stopped short of rounding the corner. "One more thing," he held up a finger, "if Mr. Osborne returns, looking for me–" the conjurer recalled the werewolf's status as a 'player,' "–don't, under any circumstances, tell him where I've gone or why."

The monk raised a perplexed eyebrow. "As you wish."

Loki nodded with satisfaction. He had no doubt whatsoever that Oz would be playing for the 'good side' in whatever game this was —if he were truly a player as Tory intimated— that wasn't what bothered the conjurer. What bothered Loki was whose view of 'good' defined the 'side' Oz would find himself on. It certainly wasn't Loki's game: he didn't even know the rules. Thus, he was limited in whom he could trust.

There was —as usual— much to be done and little time to do it. Planes had recently lost their appeal. They took too much time and allowed him to think for too long about how things might go wrong. Teleportation was even hurting less. He was becoming immune to the headaches that used to plague him.

"Will you be leaving presently, sir?" the monk asked before the conjurer could turn away.

Loki paused. "There's one thing I need first."

---

The black globe sat unobtrusively on the cobbles at the extreme rear of the monastery's gardens. It was the largest Dagon Sphere. It had been soaking up the sun now for a week, as explained by the late master Haargan. Its surface showed not even a sheen from the morning sun. Now it was ready.

Two hands took its smooth surface and set it in a duffle bag. Let the games begin.


	6. Chapter 6

_Author's Note_: If you have not read my story _Walking in Fear_, I recommend you do, as the two stories are now intertwined…

Part VI – The Game

Fifty

20 June, 2002, Los Angeles

Angel frowned. "It's been a long time." They stood by a big oak tree in the cemetery. "What's so urgent that it couldn't wait?"

"I need to talk to you about Dawn," Loki replied, his face a mere convergence of shadows in the darkness. His shirt was motionless, as there was no breeze, making it easy to mistake him for one of the many, flowing, grey, stone statues scattered around the necropolis, like people from some occult unearthly realm, frozen in place mid-wail and mid-prayer.

Angel was silent for a long moment. "What do you know?" It was the only thing he could think to ask that wouldn't give away any information beyond that of Dawn's existence. He had been uneasy enough when the conjurer had come to him with a picture of the Slayer's sister, and Angel had been careful to reveal nothing, but it seemed in now for naught.

Loki picked up on this immediately and smiled. "I know more than you do, believe me. I am the engineer of her... unique origins."

Angel was silent for an even longer moment. "You were one of those monks Buffy was talking about. Of the Order of the Dragon."

"Order of Dagon, actually," Loki corrected. "And I wasn't really one of them. I just worked with them." He sighed, wistfully. "She was by far my greatest creation."

Angel stiffened. "What do you want with her?"

Loki snapped out of his nostalgia. "When I created her, I hadn't intended for her to become so... _real_." He blinked, almost with a guilty expression on his darkened face. "At the time, she was a project. A vessel for something that... something very important." _Something that I wanted very badly,_ he almost said, _and still do_.

"She's human now," Angel defended. "And there's nothing you can do about it. She's not a tool anymore."

Loki nodded. "Of course. That wasn't what I meant." He sighed. "I made a mistake. I-" he winced, though it was almost unseen, "I didn't make her whole. I _couldn't_ make her whole. Because _I'm_ not whole."

Angel's brow furrowed. "Whole in what way?"

Loki licked his lips. "Whole the way you are, Angel. Whole the way Angelus isn't."

The animosity in Angel's voice slowly faded. He nodded. "What do you need?"

"I need you to stay out of my way for this," Loki said calmly. "I know normally you would step in – helping the helpless and al that, but I need you – _she _needs you to stay away. I need you to keep the others out of my way. This is moving too quickly. It's all too risky, I can't afford delays."

"What's risky? Is Dawn the one at risk?" Angel frowned and made a threatening step towards the conjurer. When no response seemed forthcoming, he took the specter by the shirt. "What are you going to do?"

Loki kept himself from taking offense at the physical contact. "I'm going to do for her what I did for you. What others have done for you. Make her whole. In that, there's always a risk." He slowly felt himself being let down from the vampire's iron grip. "I'm glad you understand."

---

21 June, 2002, Sunnydale

The sun wouldn't rise yet for another few hours. Loki found himself almost at home in the shadows here. He had been here almost as often as L.A. Only in the shadows, however, did he feel at home here.

With a breath of the unusually cool night air, he sank to a crouch behind a small tree. It was not the tree that provided cover, however, but the fabric of reality: the darkness itself. He set the tiny glass orb in the grass by the tree. Its size and color reminded him of the littlest sphere – left where it only needed be found once more – but the weight and feel were all wrong. This was not a sphere to bring peace. This sphere brought death on eight legs. He had only ever done this once before, but he knew —with a little insight from Wilson— that it would work.

Within seconds, the tiny egg-like thing cracked open and a baby spider wriggled out, scampering back and forth among the blades of grass.

Loki looked up from his cloak of invisibility to see a form strutting arrogantly towards the shop across the way. The conjurer shook his head. _It would be so easy, _his mind told him. _Kill him now_. But no. The timing was not yet right. If he acted rashly, everything might be ruined. Instead, Loki drew the picture of Hanna from his pocket and held it out of the impenetrable shadow for the spider to see. The spider gave a small hiss and scampered off, growing larger by the minute.

Spike paused a few meters from the door to the Magic Box to have a smoke. He watched impassively, as the minutes passed, as the cat-sized spider darting from shadow to shadow grew to the size of a small car. Only when he was done with his cigarette, though, did he turn his attention back to the Magic Box. After all: there was no smoking in there.

"Evening," the vampire said, "just thought you blokes might want to know, there's a large spider-like thing roamin' n' ransackin', the whole deal." With a satisfied sigh he rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck to one side. "Well," he nodded, "I'll be off then, just givin' you lot fair warning." He turned and the small bell above the door rang again as he left. With a snap, he raised the collar on his duster. "Ooh, chilly in'it?"

Spike left the scrambling bunch and meandered over to the nearest tree to lean back and watch. As he pulled another smoke from his pack and flicked his lighter open, a voice came from nowhere, making his jump. "You like to watch, don't you?"

Spike whirled on the source of the voice but could see nothing. "Who's that, then?" he demanded, tossing out the freshly lit cigarette.

"You're a useless coward and you're disgraceful," the voice answered.

The vampire scoffed. "Look, pal, nothin' much more useless and cowardly than a bloody disembodied voice. I'm trying to watch the show, sod off."

The voice, now very close to the blond haired vamp's ear, was filled with almost giddy anticipation. "I think nothing in this world will bring me more joy than killing you–"

Spike turned around again, his hands up, ready for a fight, but the voice and its source were gone. After several uneasy minutes, during which the newly ensoulled vampire questioned his regained sanity, he resigned himself to spending the rest of the night in the relative sanity and safety of the Slayer's basement. He never heard the girl's scream.

---

22 June, 2002, Sunnydale

Dawn was quiet on the way home from school. The highschool year was almost over. Since Willow and Tara's semester ended in April, they were usually available to pick her up after class. Normally, the three of them chatted away the car ride, but today the two witches seemed to pick up on the teen's quiet mood and were silent. It was Tara who finally broke the silence.

"You didn't have to go to school today," Tara said gently. "We would have understood."

Dawn was slow to respond. "It's okay," she said at last. "School's fine. I– I'm feeling better today... really." She spoke to the motherly worry in the older girl's eyes.

"Gotta love that Osiris," Willow said, trying to make a joke, ignorant of the hand Tara placed on her leg. "Always there to make you feel better... n' alive." She made a weak laugh but Dawn was silent.

"Did you have that dream again last night?" Tara asked, trying to change the subject. "The 'pedestrian crossing' dream?"

"I don't remember," Dawn lied. After several long moments, the teen leaned in between the two front seats. "What... what would a wicca-wise person say, you know, theoretically, if I were to ask why the dreams were getting worse?"

Tara turned around almost completely in the passenger seat, her look of concern increasing. "Sh- she might say that the unconscious split inside you was growing and that some part of you was afraid that eventually it would swallow you up."

"What dreams?" asked Willow, trying to turn around and keep her eyes on the road at the same time.

"A- and how would she recommend I resolve it, assuming I didn't ever want to have another dream that scary again?"

Tara was quiet for some time, almost to the point where Dawn thought she wouldn't answer. Then she did. "She'd tell you to find someone with experience in these kinds of things—" Tara switched immediately into mother-mode, "—Dawn, sometimes a dream is just a dream, no matter how scary. I can give you some herbs that will let you get some dreamless sleep if you'd like."

Dawn was impassive. She had listened only to what the wicca-wise person had said. With the question that now plagued her, since yesterday's discovery and confirmation that she was in fact a Specter, there was only one person to see. But it wasn't dark yet; he'd be sleeping in the basement.

---

Fifty One

25 June, 2002, Los Angeles

Loki sat still and reverent in the pew of the cathedral. He waited. He hadn't come here to confess. There weren't names enough for the things he'd done. Besides, he told himself, religion held no appeal for a specter. This religion was grounded on the promise of eternal life. That promise didn't apply to Loki. At least, not yet.

He didn't need to look to know that she had come in. She, the object of his desire. The tool he would use to make that promise extend to him again. Wherever his soul was – wherever that unique sense of consciousness had been taken, assuming it still existed, it wasn't in this dimension. And soon he would find it again, and then he could be with Hanna – where he now knew she was… But he hadn't come here for the Key. She wasn't ready for him yet. Though that wasn't to say the game hadn't already begun. She had already begun to play.

As she and the young priest made their way to an unused doorway, Loki smiled. He rose and followed them. They would be going to see the priest's life insurance policy. There was no way that Wethrin could know his scheme had been compromised. If the offices of Wolfram & Hart were Wethrin's superiors, then either they didn't care about the priest's well-being, or they knew Destiny was on Loki's side: The barrier preventing the hordes of demons and vampires from reaching the surface was no longer under their control — no longer keyed to Wethrin's death. The young priest was now on borrowed time.

Waiting in the deep shadows until the two had left the tunnel, Loki strode confidently past the intermittent torches to the opening of the cavern. The barrier was holding: an invisible force of powerful magic which blocked the tunnel entrance to all forms of life. Loki had erected his own identical shield before obliterating the old. But it would not hold forever. Loki lifted the solution from his duffle bag and lifted it to eye level in the demonic red glow. "Let's give you a little more oomph, shall we?" He stroked the large black sphere, caressing it with sparks which flew from his fingers. "That's better," the conjurer smiled. "What's that?" He held his ear closer to the sphere. "You want me to hurl you into that pit of monsters? Well..." he cocked his head disapprovingly, "just this once."

Like a shot put, he lobbed the sphere through the barrier and as it arced gracefully into the air and began its long descent into the midst of the demonic army, it began to glow. The snarling and hissing of the legions below grew to shrieks and wails as the glowing ball exploded with sunlight and sparks before it touched the ground.

Not a creature, damned or otherwise, was left alive or undead in the great cavern after the sunlight and sparks had faded. A few moments passed before the grey smoke lifted from the now empty and unlit pit. The barrier blocking the tunnel entrance flickered visibly as it vanished.

---

Dawn's eyes were wide with terror as the green entity burst from her chest and threw the young priest over his desk. Needle points of pain pricked her as the green energy crackled over each grain of demonic sand Father Wethrin had sprinkled over her in his attempt to exorcize what was within her.

She rose from the chair and dashed from the room.

Wethrin groaned. That had obviously not been a great idea. When his employers had told him who would come to visit him, he had thought taking the Key would be an excellent opportunity to move up the corporate ladder. Obviously it was not meant to be.

The priest slowly lifted himself from the scattered books and pages and stood behind his desk, massaging the arm he had landed on. He bent down to retrieve the demonic text he had been reading from and when he straightened again, an unwelcome face stared back.

It took the priest half a second to realize what was going on. Then a small smile of gallows humor appeared on his face. "Today?" he asked with a trace of regret. Loki made a small nod, his face stoic. Wethrin returned the nod, then after a small sigh, suddenly turned and leapt straight for the stained glass window. He was caught, however, just after his feet left the ground, by an invisible fist which closed around him like a child's grip on a favored toy. Before he could even draw breath to scream, he was driven against the floor with such force as to break nearly every bone in his body. He managed a moan, however, before the life finally left him.

"Goodbye, my friend," Loki said with a nod of respect. "I'm not sure if you're lucky or cursed that the first soul you traded was your own."

---

26 June, 2002, Chamdo, Tibet

The plane came down with a screeching of tires and the blast of the engine exhaust on the tarmac. Sami had a window seat and looked with a troubled face at the landscape. It was nothing like she was used to. But she was used to surprises. She was used to things being very different from normal – whatever that word meant.

She looked down at the small black and white picture in her hand. She shouldn't have run away, but most kids didn't live a life like hers. She knew her foster parents would understand. The question was: Would _he_? The eyes looked up at her from the picture in her lap. Whoever he was…

---

26 June, 2002, Amsterdam, Netherlands

The woman awoke from death screaming. She was no volunteer. She was the stuff business was made of. Rich men with sick minds paid great fortunes, favors or services to find that a certain person in their lives was now open to whatever kind of control they could dream up. Indris was happy to provide that kind of control. Death was a necessary side effect for the one being controlled.

The woman continued screaming as the servants carried her naked form out of the tastefully decorated work room. Indris leaned back with a satisfied grin. It was always nice to hear his work was appreciated.

Suddenly his grin faded. Something was wrong. One of his servants had been cleaning the collection room and— Indris stood from his work stool and the two servants by the door opened it for him. The lights beyond were on.

The necromancer and his two servants moved cautiously into the collection room, eyeing the frozen figures and their unique backdrops with growing discomfort. Indris swallowed. He felt sweat beading up under his long robe. They were dead, he told himself, well; nearly dead.

Soon the three came upon the very dead body of the servant. All of Indris' servants were dead – facilitating his control over them. But this one... Indris had lost his sense of this servant's sight when the servant had been removed of his head. The head lay nearby, gazing blankly into the carpeted isle between the rows of figures.

Indris turned quickly around, his heart beating wildly. The kill had been clean, as if done with a sharp blade. Over a dozen collection pieces included blades – but all were still secure in the hands of the figures. If someone had broken into the collection room, they could be hiding anywhere. There were more than seventy pieces to Indris' collection, and many of them were completely disguised in cloak or armor. The necromancer looked wildly from one frozen face to the next.

The two servants fanned out, moving — looking where Indris was not. With his three pairs of eyes, the necromancer scanned his collection for signs of anything out of place. The witch. The Pope. The ghoul. The Queller. The three pairs of eyes moved down the carpeted isle past where the servant had been decapitated. As Indris moved on, one of the servants paused at the mail-clad warrior, drawing up close to see what appeared to be blood on the sword. The servant looked up into the knight's face. _Blink_.

Indris whirled around as the second servant's skull was cleaved in two. The body fell to the ground with a splatter of brain matter and fluid. Alexius raised his sword high over his head with both hands as he stood upon his pedestal, framed by his backdrop of a charging crusade. With the song of a still vibrating long sword, the knight cut the last servant nearly in half from armpit to shoulder.

Indris raised his hands, beginning the deep chant of a sudden-death curse, when a calm, rational voice spoke up from behind him. "Can I make a suggestion?" The necromancer turned around and suddenly stumbled back, falling to the floor on top of the two mutilated bodies of the servants.

Whistler stood calmly on the carpet between the rows of now empty display stands. Cliff had done what Whistler had known he would – what any good employer would do: he had looked after his employees. And then some. Every creature and hero stood behind Whistler, each with a distinct memory of their time spent on display and of the man who came to pose them. All eyes were on the necromancer.

"I suggest," the demon went on, tipping back his fedora, "that you say your prayers." And the hordes fell upon the red robed man cowering on the floor, soon drowning out his terrified shrieks with snarls and the sounds of teeth in flesh.

---

26 June, 2002, Cape Spear, Canada

A smile spread across Loki's face. He stood in the tall swaying grass at the top of the cliff. The sun would be setting soon. The Atlantic Ocean pounded at the base of the cliff face, grinding away at it, incessantly.

Soon she would be here — ready for him. They would meet for the first time as Dawn Summers and Loki. Student and teacher. Specter to specter. Nothing more.

The cool ocean breeze whipped and snapped through his silk shirt. The silk that had carried him along as his archetypal identity. His reputation had grown from the shirt. His shaggy blond hair streamed away from his brow and temples as the wind picked up.

She would be here soon. Then she would come to know — really know what it was to have a soul... Loki shook his head. It seemed almost sad; leading her on this way. His desires led him in a direction which offered her no benefits, though they both desired the same thing.

For the first time in a long time, Loki wondered what it would be like to have his soul back. Could he ever really find peace? Could he afford redemption after all he had cost the world in pain? Would anyone forgive him? Would Hanna? He shuddered: Would Rachel?

He slowly turned his head, locks of blond hair trailing across his face. Dawn lay sleeping in the thick grass, like an angel plucked from some exquisite dream. Loki peered at her from behind his tossing hair. Finally he tore his gaze away and sighed. Soon she would awake. And then they could begin.

---

Fifty Two

28 June, 2002, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Charlie struggled feebly against the grip of the many strong monks. Blood covered his lips and stained his teeth. They dragged him from the room away from the collapsed form of the blood junkie. She was just unconscious. Charlie had gotten little less than three ounces of blood from her arm before Loki had had his monks intervene.

"She _asked_ me!" The vampire shouted as the monks nearly carried him down the stone corridor. "She _begged me_!" he hollered. But he was soon locked in another room where his shouts went unheard.

Loki stepped inside the room and knelt by the girl. She lay with her bloodied arm stretched out, her eyes closed. He pushed away the pity he felt for her. After all, she hadn't _chosen_ to be bitten the first time. These things had a way of happening. The point was what you do with what happens to you. She had given in. When the match was rigged against her, she threw in the towel. Disappointing. But not damning.

He scooped her up into his arms and carried her to the next test. She murmured incoherently in her chemical-anemic sleep. The experience of being fed upon – of having her blood drained on purpose, released massive amounts of endorphins and adrenaline, strengthening the psychological need for the vampire. The chemicals must be purged. Normal meditation would do it if the subject was willing, but in this case…

He rounded the corner and entered the next room. It contained the ancient meditative bed which would serve his purpose. Not a bed at all, but three waist high wooden posts set apart about three feet from each other in a line. Two chains hung from the ceiling and ended in manacles on either side of the end post, level with its top.

The conjurer gently sat her down on the center post, then, holding her neck with care, laid her back so her neck rested on the post by the chains. When he was sure she wouldn't roll off, he swung her legs up to the last post and folded her arms on her stomach.

He walked around her sleeping form to the head of the 'bed' and took her left arm and stretched it out to the manacle dangling from the ceiling. He took the disinfectant cloth from the small wooden bowl on the stool nearby and began to clean the bite. She winced in her sleep as the alcohol met the wound. Once he was satisfied it would not become infected, Loki lifted her wrist into the manacle and closed it with a click. He attached her right arm in a similar fashion on the other side.

Before turning away, he gently drew a sweat-dampened strand of hair from her brow then he clenched his jaw and left the room.

---

29 June, 2002, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Oz frowned. "What do you mean? Why would he not want to see me?" The red haired young man crossed his arms. "What's going on? What's he up to?"

The monk standing before him didn't move a muscle. "He has requested that be kept a secret as well, sir." Oz was shaking his head. "He has emphasized, sir, that you have all the usual privileges and accesses in the lamasery."

Oz made a sarcastic little laugh. "Yeah, thanks." He turned and headed for the great door that was the entrance and exit of the lamasery, when the monk took a step and raised his voice.

"There _is_, I believe, a particularly _special_ evening prayer two days from now..." the monk lowered his head as Oz turned around, ensuring the inference was clear. "A very _unusual_ ritual, I expect," the monk went on, "however it is considered evening prayer and would therefore be included as a usual privilege."

Oz raised an eyebrow. After a moment, he slid the strap of his duffle bag from his shoulder. With a thunk it hit the floor. "Thanks," he said with a small nod. The monk nodded in return before turning and moving back down the corridor he guarded.

---

Charlie sat on the stool in the corner of the tiny, dark cell. His heart raced from the small amount of human blood he had tasted. But now he was doomed. Not just to death, but _damnation_. The soul which had opened up a new world for him of feeding, guilt-free, from animals was going to drag him down to some fiery pit for eternity. At least, that was Charlie's conception of hell. Fire and brimstone. Devils and demons. He shuddered. He had never considered himself evil. He just did what he liked because he could. Morality took a back seat when he realized his power after he was sired. But then, maybe it was only now that he had been returned his soul that these conceptions mattered. Was amorality the curse of the soulless?

The door opened, letting in first a crack, then a wedge, then a torrent of light. Charlie squinted, holding a hand before his eyes. Would he be chopped up first, or just staked? When his eyes adjusted, a lone figure stood in the light of the corridor beyond the door.

"I'm very pleased with you, Charlie." Loki stepped into the room, his hands clasped behind his back. The vampire did a double take. "Not only did you expend significant effort to resist your nature, but in the end it wasn't your nature which won you over; it was your compassion. You fed on that girl to relieve her pain, not your own."

Charlie's eyes were darting back and forth quickly, analyzing the sudden change in the situation. "You's sayin' you ain't gonna dust me?" He asked, the first bit of elation spreading through him.

"No, you're going to stay as you are, Charlie. Do you know why?" Loki began to pace, very slowly before the seated brit. Charlie shook his head. "Because you're special, Charlie. You're a very special vampire. There's a prophecy written about you. Did you know that?"

Charlie blinked. "Because o' me soul?"

"Because of your soul." The conjurer continued to pace. "There are two vampires with souls, or there will be, and you're one of them."

"What else does it say?" The vampire asked, shifting in his seat.

Loki smiled. "It says that you will be a champion and go on to do great things." He turned and leaned in to look the vampire in the eyes. "You're very important to me, Charlie," there was some concern in the conjurer's voice, as if it were vital that the vampire understand this. "You're a very special vampire."

Charlie tried to smile but found he couldn't. "Alright," he said weakly.

Loki nodded, satisfied and straightened. "You're free to go, Charlie, anywhere in the lamasery. You may have animal's blood any time you wish and if there's anything else you need for your comfort, please don't hesitate to tell me." He turned and exited the room, leaving the door open behind the still seated and still baffled vampire. "Oh, there's one more thing," he turned just outside the door. "That girl who was with you, she's having a special ritual the day after tomorrow. I'd like you to attend."

Charlie shifted in his seat. "I- I'd like that... sir," the brit stumbled over the words. When Loki nodded and turned away, Charlie raised his voice slightly. "Is she gettin' a soul then, sir?"

Loki turned around and studied the vampire with an odd expression for a long moment. "What a strange question," the conjurer frowned. With that he turned and left.

---

Oz stared at the mediation bed for a long time. Bed wasn't really the right word for it: it was three short posts and two dangling manacles. It was in the section of the monastery where he had worked the last time he was here, so he assumed he was still allowed entrance… But what Oz was allowed to do was far from his mind at this moment as he stood in the stagnant air of the small stone room.

A vaguely familiar scent lingered. A scent, he guessed, only his werewolf nose could pick up. One he hadn't smelled in years… and couldn't even remember if he had ever truly smelled it. He blinked. What was _she_ doing here?

With a puzzled frown, he left the room and turned right; following the narrow passageway to the intersection he knew was forbidden. He turned left anyway, following the torch-lit hall past many heavy wooden doors until he came to the very end. He had lost Dawn's scent some time before the turn, but the fact that Master Loki had left instructions that Oz not be allowed access to this hallway was a good indication that what the werewolf was looking for was indeed here.

With some shoulder to the door, Oz managed to gain entrance, finding himself in a very pungent room indeed. The musty smell of ancient death filled every corner. Withered skulls and bones were set on shelves next to artifacts and relics, gold and silver and crowns inset with precious stones. A large chest with two carved, golden seraphim facing each other. A glass case in the center of the room showed a silver sphere resting on black velvet and impressions where other spheres might have also been displayed.

Oz walked silently around the room, picking up odd trinkets and even drawing a decorative sword. Finally he came to a small wooden table where almost everything had been cleared away. On the table lay a long spike of some kind, twisted like a rope and gently curving. At its thick end was a chunk of something which Oz could smell was bone. A horn, Oz realized. From a gazelle or an antelope or some game animal. Near the piece of skull a notch had been cut into the horn and Oz ran his fingers over it, feeling the old surface, never healed.

Just then, he heard footsteps in the hall outside the door. He ducked down in the corner behind a cluttered shelf near the table. He could smell the scent of the conjurer as he entered and he heard two sets of footsteps. The hair stood up on the back of his neck as his werewolf senses told him the other person was a vampire. _What was Loki doing with a vampire?_ Oz thought with a frown.

Loki moved to a tall shelf near the door and selected an old wooden bowl. He placed the clear plastic bag of blood into the bowl and handed it to the eager vampire who took a bite of it, letting the precious red fluid dribble into the bowl.

"You can have as much as you want," Loki was saying as the vampire feasted, the sounds of sucking and slurping clear. "And for your role in helping that girl, I must thank you again."

Oz peeked out from his hiding place to see Charlie look up, his lips and teeth red with blood. The brit nodded. "It really was out of pity you know," he affirmed. "That girl was in pain – I's had to bite her."

"Of course you did," Loki nodded. He wouldn't admit it, but at this point, Charlie was untouchable. The vampire with a soul had become, in the last few days, one of the most valuable things Loki possessed.

Loki's encounter with Cliff – that other-worldly being with ambitions of getting the Key for itself – had shown the conjurer exactly what he was up against. It was all a game. A twisted and cruel game which had destroyed much of Logan Kilpatrick's world. But Loki was good at games. He had gotten a glimpse of the other players and wouldn't let what he knew go to waste.

"You know you are a very special vampire," Loki said, watching the vampire eat. He saw Charlie become a little uncomfortable. The brit had been hearing that he was special for days and yet had been treated as a tool. Less than a pawn even, but critical none the less.

With Charlie in play, Spike's value as the second vampire with a soul was void. Spike was fair game and so, therefore, was the Key. And very soon, it would be time to claim what was rightfully his.

The conjurer flashed briefly to Cliff's threat – if he couldn't get the Key, he would kill Dawn. Loki had no doubt that Cliff could follow through on this threat, but Cliff really meant to threaten the Key itself: he would destroy it rather than let it be taken from him, perhaps in the hopes that the Powers would make another one. Cliff had no specific grievance with Dawn Summers the human being.

Either way, Loki thought, once the conjurer had the Key, he would be out of this dimension like a bat out of hell. Cliff, he knew, couldn't follow him, so what happened here – what happened to Dawn – wasn't really his concern.

It was a less than ideal solution, but in the end, it was the last solution Destiny had left him with. Perhaps Cliff would go berserk and destroy this little world. Then all those deaths would be on the Powers That Be for forcing him to this move. In chess, all pieces were subordinate to the safety of the King, but Loki was a knight who would throw the game if it meant he was the last piece standing…

Oz couldn't believe what he was seeing. This vampire had just killed Dawn Summers? And Loki was promising the vampire more blood? The conjurer had certainly chosen a side, Oz thought, his teeth grinding. He recalled the "favor" Loki had done for Jade and him when they had come here for help… the conjurer's methods had always seemed amoral, but not until now did Loki seem truly evil. Oz's jaw tightened. Buffy needed to know. Everyone needed to know what kind of… sick fuck this Loki was.

---

Fifty Three

30 June, 2002, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet (GMT + 8)

Wilson was the only source of light in the room. The sun hadn't risen yet over the Qingzang Plateau. Under the Now Sphere's glassy surface bubbled a red brew of cloud. Gently, the clouds parted to reveal the still sleeping form of Dawn. She had passed the second test very commendably, the conjurer knew. Two more tests and she would be ready. They both would be.

Next came the Test of Failure. Confronted with an impossible task, can the student bring herself to declare the test unfair?

He turned away, tucking the tiny egg-like spheres into his pockets. He had places to be and she would awake soon.

---

29 June, 2002, Sunnydale (Pacific Time: GMT - 8)

It was early evening and the research was yielding very little that they liked. Since Dawn had disappeared, Angel had introduced Buffy to the enigma called Loki, a.k.a. Logan Kilpatrick. Magician on the down low, Loki, they were discovering, had a sordid past.

As Xander and Anya researched for any person matching Loki's description, and Buffy sat in shock with the realization that Hanna Kilpatrick was the face and smile of the Slayer's kid sister, Giles and Willow and Tara continued to research.

As the information poured up the screen, Giles blinked. In his experience, demons of the Werlech variety were neither henchmen nor master planners. They were mercenaries – fighting and killing in a rather simplistic and direct way, to achieve their own goals. Some of them even went so far as to hire themselves out as assassins. Giles blinked, the thought searing through his mind like a hot brand.

"Uh, fellas?" Spike was standing, looking out the window. "Whoever said this Logan bloke had this whole thing planned down to a T," he pointed out the window, "wasn't lying."

They all began to assemble weapons and were soon out the door, all except Willow and Tara, who opted for continuing the research as opposed to going head to head with the dozens of giant spiders now roaming outside. Besides, they had discovered, magic was ineffectual against these eight legged monstrosities.

Willow turned back to her computer screen. Her lips twitched and Tara seemed to pick up on it, for she approached and glanced at Will's computer. "Problem?"

The other witch shook her head. "N– no." She blinked and turned to face the one she loved most. "The temptation is there, you know?" Tara frowned. "To just wave my hands over the keyboard and find what I need."

"I know it's there," Tara soothed. "But that's what makes you a good witch, _resisting_ it."

Will gave a dry laugh. "Yeah, I'm like president of the responsible-with-magic club."

Tara took Willow's hand in her own. "Come on, you've come so far. We're all very proud of you. _I'm_ very proud of you." Tara held up Will's hand and kissed it, then held it to her cheek.

"What would I do if I lost you?" Willow asked, pained at the mere idea.

"I hope we'll never have to find out," Tara smiled.

_Advanced Search Complete (42.06 sec) Results 1 of 1_

Willow looked back to the computer screen and Tara released her hand. She followed Willow's gaze and frowned. "What is it?"

"I don't know," the witch admitted, "it's in Chinese." She moved the cursor over the _translate_ command and clicked. Within seconds, the website popped up in choppy English. The title was a graphic of Chinese figures and an emblem of some kind, so it remained untranslated, but the two witches immediately began reading the text below.

---

30 June, 2002, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet (GMT + 8)

Dawn sat in her room on her mattress, waiting for the Fourth Test. In her own mind, she had done quite well on the last one, admittedly with some help from Anya, but that wasn't important. What was important was that she was closer to it. _To what?_ she asked herself. To... home. A soul — something she had never known she was missing and then never known how to miss. Would it change her? Would she be as different as Spike had been since he came back from Africa? Would she feel the 'vice grips,' as he had called it, squeezing on her heart too? _I hope so_, she thought. Maybe the reason she and Spike had gotten along so well before he had gone away was that they were two of a kind. Two 'alright' Specters out to rule the night. Well, they would be two of a kind again, once she found what she was looking for. She gripped the tiny glass sphere tighter – her quest stone. Just one more test.

---

30 June, 2002, Sunnydale (Pacific Time: GMT - 8)

Tara yawned. She looked at the clock display in the corner of the computer screen. It was very... early. The website went on and on and on, the English very difficult to follow at times.

The small bell rang admitting Xander with Anya in tow. "You wanna explain that?" Xander asked her, crossing his arms.

Will and Tara turned around at the unusually annoyed tone in Xander's voice. "Explain what?" they asked in unison.

Xander's head turned to them. "Anya, here, just teleported to and from the 'mysterious hideout' in the 'mysterious mountain of mystery.'" There was a pause. "Without a spell or a wish or anything, and _without_ knowing where she was going."

Willow and Tara exchanged impressed expressions. "Good job," Will nodded.

"Yeah, well done," Tara smiled.

Xander threw up his hands. "_How_ did you do it? _This_ would have been nice to know earlier!"

Anya was smiling proudly. "It was pretty cool, wasn't it?" Then, seeing Xander's exasperation, she let the smile fall away. "It was an accident." There was a doubtful pause from Xander. "It _was_!" she said defensively. "I've never gone anywhere like that before with so little thought."

"What are you talking about?" Xander demanded as Giles and Spike strolled in, panting from exertion.

Anya sighed with irritation. She walked pointedly over to the display case and indicated the small pouch, nearly hidden behind a jar of pixie dust. The tag on it read: _Slightly Bitter Sand_ and the price had been repeatedly marked down, now reading _$2.99 / pinch_.

Giles caught on to what was going on and moved to the display case to examine the stuff. "I don't remember this in the inventory."

"Derex had it on him," Anya said simply. "You remember Derex, don't you Willow? 'Come see man with extremely tiny head?'" Willow nodded absently. "I think he has his own show on Fox now..." She shook her head. "He must have dropped it when you knocked him out, Xander," Anya looked to him as she said this. To Giles' confused glance she explained. "Xander knocked out the circus man with a giant candy cane."

"Naturally," Giles, having given up on understanding their words, had taken the sack from the display case and was examining its contents. "And you sprinkled this on yourself... or- or in a circle around yourself?"

"Neither," the vengeance demon smiled. "I ate some."

There was a very long pause. "You _ate some?_" Xander asked, incredulous. "You _ate_ a mysterious powder that you found on a freak who was trying to kill you?"

Anya frowned. "Well, when you say it like that, it just sounds stupid."

"Well, we can use this, then," Tara indicated the pouch in Giles' hands, "t- to get to the hideaway."

"Not so fast," Giles cautioned, pulling the drawstring on the sack closed. "We don't know anything about this sand, besides the fact that it's-" he glanced down at the tag, "slightly bitter."

Anya shrugged. "And even that's an exaggeration."

"It won't take long to do some tests on it," Tara said hopefully. She looked from face to face. "W- we need to find Dawn — a- and there's some stuff here," she indicated the computer screen, "that Buffy needs to know."

"What sort of stuff?" Giles frowned and moved closer to the two girls.

"This," Willow explained, showing the title graphic of the site, "is the Chinese version of the Initiative. It's called the Zhŭdòngxìng, which literally translated means Host which Moves Nature." Everyone gathered around. "They patrol around for demons and vampires and stuff, but they also keep in contact with other, similar organizations around the world. Th- They have records here of demon and other activity dating back sixty years."

"They're paramilitary?" Xander asked, looking closer at the miliary-style logo on the screen.

Willow nodded. "Highly advanced, too. They make the Initiative look like Boy Scouts."

"And they've learned something about this Loki?" Giles asked, squinting at the small print. The witches didn't answer, letting the Watcher read for himself. His eyes slowly widened. "Oh... good... _Lord_..."

---

Fifty Four

30 June, 2002, Sunnydale

Willow strode to the counter with the pouch of sand from the back of the store where the smoke was still clearing. "It's safe," she reported, "assuming you don't light it on fire or mix it with anything basic."

"What is it, exactly?" Giles asked looking down, slightly less suspiciously, at the sand.

"Simple teleportation sand," the witch shrugged as Tara approached, "refined in ways I'll never understand and metabolized quickly into the body to become inert — that's why you don't keep teleporting with every thought after you've tasted just a little bit."

"So we could use this to teleport all of us to the monastery?" Xander had assembled several bags of weapons. "Count me in."

"Now hold on," Giles held up a hand. "We need to have a plan first. This is a very delicate situation." Everyone heard Spike groan from the other end of the store.

"_Delicate?_" he said angrily. "It's not delicate. It's very sodding simple: You beam over there and grab bitty-Buffy before we all forget she ever existed, then you kill that sodding son of a bitch that took her right out from under your noses. What's so bleedin' delicate about that? What's he gonna do? Monk you to death?"

"No, Giles is right," Anya argued. "I teleported over there and ended up in some dungeon with another one of those spider things. And by the way–" she crossed her arms, "for the record, I _did_ try to rescue the little twerp but she told me to piss off."

"You couldn't have taken her back with you," Willow shook her head. "Not unless you'd brought extra sand for her – it only works for the person who ingested it."

"I- I think we should scout it out," Tara suggested, looking from face to face which now turned to her. "You know– send Willow and me over to look around."

"Hey, yeah," Willow's eyes lit up. "W- we could be all sneaky and cat-burglarish."

Giles and Xander were nodding. The Watcher opened the pouch and handed it to the witches. "Be careful. If anyone sees you, come back at once." As they dipped their hands into the pouch, he continued. "Try and find out where they might be hiding Dawn, and how long we have before they are ready for the ritual." Spike threw up his hands and shook his head, but everyone ignored him.

Tara and Willow touched their sand-tipped fingers to their tongues and after a moment made disgusted faces. Anya winced and shrugged, weakly. "Maybe it's a little more than _slightly_ bitter—" and the witches were gone.

---

30 June, 2002, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Loki turned from his desk with a start. His heart pounded. Whistler had been right: Somehow Wilson hadn't predicted this – because it was the last thing that Loki wanted. Two witches stood between him and the door: the Tara-witch and the Willow-witch.

Though it had technically never happened, Loki's battle with Willow had changed him inside. Until then, after becoming a player, he had never encountered anyone more powerful than himself. He had even begun to doubt if the Powers That Be had any real power as he understood the word. But the Willow-witch had beaten him soundly.

This Willow, though she didn't have black hair and dangerous-looking clothing, must be presumed to be as, if not more, powerful than the one he encountered. And she wasn't alone.

With a single thought, he became invisible, tugging the surrounding space around him like a curtain. He saw the two witches blink rapidly as the disorientation of teleportation wore off.

"That was fun," Willow said quietly. The two girls slowly walked the length of the room, immediately finding the only thing of interest: Wilson.

Loki winced in his cloak of stealth as the two witches looked in amazement at the last image to be displayed; that of Dawn sitting quietly in her room. _Shit, shit, shit_, he thought as they lifted the sphere from the desk. He drew his hands apart and began fashioning a dark sphere of energy. Anything that emitted its own light could be seen from outside the cloak. It was large enough, within seconds, to be deadly to one of the witches if he were to launch it at them, and he was about to when Tara turned around quite suddenly—

"Ow!" She rubbed her forehead and stumbled back as both witches heard the thump of something hitting the floor. They looked down, Willow still holding Wilson, to see the image on its surface change to that of a blond haired man in white appearing suddenly from nowhere. Both Witches looked up again as Loki appeared —as predicted— from behind his cloak on the floor. His sphere of energy had been dissipated, but he still clutched a shred of it, hurling it at Willow. It struck the wall harmlessly, however, as both witches had vanished.

Loki glanced to his desk and the empty spot the Dagon Sphere had occupied. "Oh, _shit_…" There was _no_ time now. If the witches got a look into the future –and considering their limited experience with it, it would provide a very accurate look– then _everything_ could be ruined. _Time's up_, he thought to himself, _it's now or never_.

---

30 June, 2002, Sunnydale

Willow and Tara materialized in the loft at the back of the Magic Box. Willow's hands gripped the red sphere tightly as they both shivered off the effects of the transition.

"That was fast," Anya raised an eyebrow. "Did Dawn tell you to piss off too?"

"We didn't find Dawn," Willow said as she climbed down the ladder. "We were attacked by that Loki person – but we managed to grab this," she held up the sphere when she got to the bottom of the ladder.

"It's some kind of witch's ball," Tara explained before anyone could ask.

"Not that we're greedy," Willow amended quickly. "I could be _any_ witch's ball... not necessarily... _our_ witch's ball." They brought it forward to where the others were gathered. "It's keyed to predict certain events — like a future telling ball crossed with an oracle."

"What events, specifically, is it keyed to predict?" Giles asked, turning the sphere over in his hands.

"We're not sure yet," Willow frowned. "It warned us of Loki's attack, about two seconds before he did, so it must be keyed into events that the holder dictates."

Giles nodded, running his hands over the sphere's cloudy redness. Suddenly he frowned and looked deeper into the red glow. A new image had suddenly appeared. He recovered his composure immediately, and placed the sphere on the table. It rolled for a moment, as the table wasn't quite level, then came to rest against the spine of a book Xander had been reading. Always, as it rolled, the image it displayed remained facing Giles.

The Watcher looked down at the red ball and everyone stepped closer to see what he saw: Mountains. They were flying over mountains. There was the canned, slightly echoing sound of helicopter rotors, then a voice. "_I don't see anything, do you_?" The voice was Angel's.

"_Nothing_," Buffy replied as the mountains crept by beneath. "_Let's make another pass, further to the West this time_." Slowly the mountains began to turn as the chopper turned around. Then the image faded and the red clouds closed over the inside of the sphere.

"Buffy and Angel got to Tibet," Willow observed, then glanced up hopefully to the others. "That's good, right?"

"Or they _will_ get to Tibet," Giles corrected. "Though we have no idea when."

"Well, the sun was still up," Xander looked out to the darkness beyond the windows of the Magic Box. It was still early in the morning in California. "And they're on the other side of things... so I'd guess it's looking no more than an hour or two ahead."

"This must be how he controls things," Anya looked greedily at the sphere. "He can see what we're going to do before we do it."

"Apparently not," Giles gave a little sigh. "If he had, he would have been able to prevent you from making off with it."

"He nearly did," Willow argued, "but Tara found him inside his invisibility cloak." The other witch smiled sheepishly.

"I- I kind of bumped into him and knocked him to the ground," she explained with a shrug.

"Well, now that we have Nostradamus' crystal ball, we can sneak into the Fortress of Solitude and grab the D-meister, right?" Xander looked from Giles to Willow and back. "Am I right?" he prompted, hopefully.

"'Course not," Spike replied from near the ladder. "That'd be too direct," he said scornfully. "We'd better nance about here for another few hours –see how many more paperweights we can swipe from the gift shop– strategizing and whatnot; trying to decide the sodding color of the rescue van."

Giles frowned. "Spike, why don't you go outside and pretend to be scary at someone."

"Wait a minute," Tara's eyes widened. "What if he's been doing more than just observing time..."

There was a short silence as she and Willow approached the sphere. "You mean he's changing things?" the other witch asked. "How?"

Tara shook her head. "I'm not sure, b- but we know the monks changed history when they added Dawn to the timeline." As she spoke, the red clouds parted under the surface of Wilson to show a picture of Wilson itself.

"Cronus, father of time..." it was a man's voice. Even though it was slightly distorted coming from the sphere, Spike recognized it immediately and shifted uncomfortably. The image on the sphere changed to Warren struggling against the tight grip of two hands.

"_Loki_ killed Warren?" Xander asked, confused. "Why?"

"Hey, guys," Willow observed, "we're looking into the past."

Giles nodded. It seems Loki was as well, having decided for some reason to change history to his benefit."

"Well if he can change it," Willow said malevolently, "_we_ can change it _back_." She exchanged looks with Tara. "It'll just take some time to prepare."

"What makes you wankers think you have any time left?" Spike said with annoyance.

Willow raised an eyebrow. "We still remember who we're going to rescue."

"Bollocks to that," the vampire marched across the room and stabbed his finger into the sac of slightly bitter sand.

---

30 June, 2002, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Buffy's face was stained with as many tears as her sister's was. Buffy hugged her arms across her chest and whispered, almost inaudibly through the chant of the monks, "I don't want to lose you."

Dawn's hand rested above the water in the urn, the moment in her mind stretching out into infinity. The crackle of the energy across her hand, between her knuckles. The unending, unchanging hum of the combined voiced of the monks. The sting of the tears as they dried on her cheeks.

Her eyes moved up one last time from the mouth of the urn, settling between her sister and her guide in his white silk shirt. A monk stood to either side of Angel, making certain he made no false moves, considering his armament. Her eyes moved to the face of the one. Her mind froze. Charlie. Her hand tensed, her decision made.

With a mind blanked by unquestionable purpose, she plunged her hand into the water, crying out in pain as the Key found its way home.

---

Fifty Five

Dawn felt the electric thrill race through her body as the cool water drenched her hand past the wrist. Her vision was filled with such a beautiful green light that it took her breath away and made her forget the pain. But the climactic feeling only lasted an instant.

"_No!_" Dawn was snapped back to real time as Buffy shouted and a strong arm wrapped around her chest, pulling her back from the table. For an instant, she wondered how Buffy had gotten behind her, but as she was pulled backwards, her arm dragged the urn from the table, bringing it crashing to the floor in a cascade of glittering green water. She twisted around, her whole body tingling as the water in the urn splashed across her bare feet. A gripping agony suddenly seized her as her eyes focused on the face of Spike. His grip on her shoulders loosened and he frowned. He saw a familiar glow begin behind her eyes. She sank to her knees in the pool of water on the floor.

Buffy leapt over the table and caught Dawn as she collapsed to the floor. Loki shoved Spike away, his eyes wide with surprise and anger. Just as Wilson had predicted: somehow this vampire… how the hell _had_ he gotten here?

"_Spike?_" Angel frowned with confusion. "How the hell did _you_ get here?" His attention was immediately drawn back to Buffy as the Slayer let out a cry of physical agony. The dark haired vampire made a lunge forward but rough hands took his arms.

Both Spike and Loki looked down to the two sisters as they now both twisted in pain in the puddle of glowing green water. The blond haired man and the platinum haired vampire both frowned.

Loki cocked his head, looking at the girls dispassionately. For some reason, Buffy's eyes were beginning to glow as well – a sight Loki had witnessed many times, but only from those receiving their souls. "Well, _that_'s new…"

Spike looked up from Buffy and Dawn, looked to Loki then glanced to Angel. He locked eyes with the dark haired vamp on the other side of the table then slammed his fist as hard as he could into the side of the conjurer's head, shouting in pain as his chip reminded him Loki was still human. Angel twisted and drove his own fist into his escort's throat. Charlie staggered back and Angel turned to take on the other monk.

Loki stumbled aside, cursing his slow response to Spike's violent thoughts. He spun back around, power surging up to his fingertips. Somehow, Spike had come here looking for Dawn… had been offered up on a silver platter for the conjurer's taking: Destiny had finally blinked.

---

Xander and Giles appeared in the dark. They blinked repeatedly to try and adjust their vision, but to no avail: it was utterly dark.

Giles felt through his pockets, and finally drew out what he hoped was a pack of matches. Striking one blindly, he and Xander were suddenly blinded by the match's light. Blinking again, they looked around.

The two had materialized at the bottom of a stone staircase in a small, dungeon-like, stone room. Turning around in the diminishing match light, Xander let out a yelp as he realized he was standing next to the dead corpse of one of the giant spider-things. He scrambled backward and heard the crunch as he stepped on something like glass.

Giles squatted down to peer at what seemed to be scattered around the floor: Small glassy orbs, about the size of birds' eggs. Xander had stepped on one and inside something had been crushed which now oozed across the shards of glass.

The match burned low and Giles tossed it to the floor, pulling another from the pack. Striking it, the room was once again thrown into dim light and shadow. Giles turned on his heels, still near the floor, to look at the giant arachnid corpse. His eyes dropped to the eggs littering the floor. Dozens… perhaps hundreds.

"Oh, good lord."

Xander looked around, worriedly. "What? What are they?"

---

Anya appeared on the terrace at the bottom of the vast steps leading up to the front entrance of the monastery. The dark blue sky of dusk stretched out above her and the distant drone of a retreating helicopter met her ears. _Had Buffy and Angel not found this place yet?_ She scanned the sky for the helicopter and frowned. Why were there _two_ helicopters?

The commercial helicopter she had seen pick up the Slayer in Sunnydale the previous night was high tailing it East as a sleek, black, predatory looking helicopter circled the mountain like a vulture circling a dying animal in the desert. Anya glanced up the formidable stone steps. Dauntlessly, she started up them, the sun dropping behind the horizon.

---

Buffy slowly opened her eyes as the pain died away. A terrifying though jumped to the front of her mind – _don't forget_. And for another terrifying moment, she couldn't remember what she was meant to remember.

"Buffy?" Dawn asked in a weak voice. Buffy instantly found her sister and pulled her close, her Slayer strength holding Dawn with all her might. Dawn hugged back and tried to suck in a breath through the tight embrace. "Yeah… um… oxygen…"

Buffy let out a quavering laugh and blinked back fresh tears as she let Dawn ease out of the hug. Neither of them noticed the chaos of rushing monks all around them. Buffy was just basking in the relief that she still remembered her sister. Dawn was trying to sort out this indescribable new feeling somewhere inside her. Buffy looked hard into her eyes, holding her shoulders tight as if at any moment something would come to snatch her away.

As much as the Slayer and her sister ignored the pandemonium around them, so too were they ignored. Angel picked up the monk on his right by the collar of his robe and threw him across the room. The monk on his left had recovered from the punch to the throat and snarled, his face becoming vampiric.

Angel frowned in amazement as Charlie charged him, tackling the dark haired vamp around the waist and sending them both to the stone floor.

Loki paid no attention whatsoever as the monks who had been chanting now charged past him to wrestle Angel to a standstill. The conjurer had more important things on his mind.

His eyes bored into the bleach blond vampire before him. Electricity crackled between his fingers. His feet felt icy cold, his hair felt like it was singeing from the heat coming off his head and shoulders. Spike was solidly in his sights. There was nothing standing in his way anymore. No pity, no prophecy, no Slayer… No Key.

Loki slowly looked down to where Buffy and Dawn sat on the floor, holding each other on the wet stones among the shards of broken urn. Just there, in the small depression on the floor, something green flashed in the water. Looking back to Spike, Loki let a sinister smile spread across his face.

Keeping his eyes always on the tense vampire, the conjurer slowly crouched down, picking up a shard of the broken clay. With his smile never diminishing, Loki drew the sharp edge hard across his palm, cutting open his flesh. He closed his fist and held his hand out over the green flash on the floor. With a tight squeeze, he let his blood trickle down into the shallow puddle of water. His smile widened as he saw Spike looking confused from Loki's hand to the stirring entity in the water.

It had spent centuries slumbering in water until it had found the vessel from which it had just now been expelled. Back into water it had gone, but only for moments, an incomparably short span. Now it moved again, spurred by blood: into the one vessel left who could hold it.

Loki gasped in a surge of ecstasy as fourteen years of hard work by him and a thousand years of planning by beings greater than him met in one great crescendo. The conjurer's vision was filled with the most stunning green he could ever imagine. At long, long last…

---

Willow and Tara stared at the red sphere at the center of the table in the Magic Box. This was much, much more than a witch's ball. As they caressed its surface, whatever it seemed they wanted to know about… _anything_; the past, the present, the future, was revealed.

Immediately they had checked in on Buffy and Dawn and were profoundly relieved to see them unharmed. Seeing the conjurer in the white shirt again, Willow's thoughts turned to his apparent rage – his unsheltered malice. What could do that to a man, she thought. Without a second's hesitation, the glassy surface was clouded with swirling red.

The witches exchanged glances. As the surface of the sphere cleared again, Wilson showed them the answer.

---

9 August, 1988, Freeport, New York

"_Rachel!_" Logan shouted, slamming the front door closed behind him. He marched into the kitchen to find her setting down the telephone. She was dressed to go out. "What the hell is this?" he demanded, slamming the document down on the counter.

"Your notice," she said simply. "I've filed for divorce."

Logan's mouth hung open for a moment, his mind racing. "Wha— _why?_"

"Why don't you ask Niki?" Rachel shrugged, obviously hiding the supreme anger on her own part. "And once you've asked her, why don't you roll over and fuck her a few more times?" She turned to the small telephone table and slid her hand into a manila envelope, pulling out a sheaf of enlarged photos. She tossed them onto the counter towards her husband where they slid apart to reveal several intimate encounters between the blond haired man and the blond haired woman.

Logan was speechless. He slowly reached down and lifted one of the pictures to look at it. In the corner was stamped a small _W&H_ logo. "Where did you get these?" he asked, almost more offended than angry.

"I hired someone," she said casually. Rachel stared at him with a mixture of anger and regret as he stared at the photo in disbelief. "I told you never to see her again. I gave us another chance because Hanna deserves parents who love each other." There was a brief pause but he didn't look up. "With my job at the hospital, my lawyer says I'll have no problem... getting full custody."

It took a moment for the words to register. Logan slowly raised his gaze from the picture. "You are _not_ taking Hanna away from me." When Rachel said nothing, Logan's anger and most of all his fear mounted. "There's no way in _hell_ I'm _letting_ you take my daughter!"

"_Our_ daughter," Rachel said poisonously, "whose mother alone loves her enough not to jeopardize the family by screwing around."

Logan's mind was racing a mile a minute now. His thoughts were a jumble of chaos and anger. Just this morning he had kissed Hanna like he always did—

"With your criminal record, I'm also getting a restraining order against you," there was retribution now in Rachel's eyes, a cold fury that had finally found an outlet. A way to hurt him as deeply as he had hurt her. "You'll never _see_ her _again_."

Logan reeled. He staggered back from the kitchen and tore out the front door to his little brown car. "This isn't over," he said quietly as the door closed behind him. _This isn't over, this isn't over, this isn't—_

---

Loki smile at Spike for what seemed like an eternity. He was enjoying the feeling of being so close… So close to satisfaction. He had expected the feeling to be a warm tingly sensation like the excitement he had felt earlier at the prospect of finally ridding the world of this waste, but instead being on the brink of it was cold. The energy he had just absorbed thrilled through him as if he were touching a live wire. His hands trembled. Cold and tight in the chest was what he felt, knowing he would soon be satisfied.

It wasn't anything in particular; the shove of a monk; the tilt of the vampire's head; the murmuring words of comfort from the puddle on the floor; but in an instant Loki's eyes flashed a deep green and he was suddenly next to the vampire he despised.

The motion took even the conjurer by surprise. It was no twist of light; no headache-prompting teleportation like he was used to. It was in a flash of green that the conjurer moved. Bending the three dimensions of this world and moving through them with a thought. Harnessing the unparalleled magic pumped into that flashing green entity so many eons ago… and all of the last fourteen years melted away into nothing.

Meditation was nothing. Buddhism was nothing. His soul was nothing. All of it… none of it mattered anymore. His thoughts sped around in the tight confines of his mind, as if they themselves were tearing through dimensions at impossible speeds.

The conjurer's mind (or was it Loki himself?) flashed to the moment in the deepest chamber of the monastery – he was holding a young Dawn's hand over the dark ancient water. How had she done it? How had she held this power all the time…?

But the thought was over in an instant. He was back in the present – whatever that meant. He was next to Spike— His eyes flashed green again. _Spike_. That was a thought which stabbed firmly to the forefront of his mind, slicing through the jumble as the Key settled in like a balloon losing air settled: bouncing off walls and anything else in its path.

The vampire had only just turned to find the man in the white silk shirt standing now behind him. The vampire pulled his fist back to deliver a blow, but in the conjurer's eyes, the movement was impossibly slow. It was the stabbing thought which festered at the front of the conjurer's mind which controlled him now.

Spike swung his fist but it passed through thin air, that damn green light whisking the conjurer away again. The vampire's senses told him the attacker's location and he turned in one fluid motion, intending to drive his fist into the silk-covered gut. But before his fist could connect, the bastard was gone again. He turned again, ready to take the man by the head and prevent him from disappearing again, but a hand clamped down on his shoulder as he twisted.

There was a shattering explosion of green light as Loki found the power which had been charging around inside him like a wild animal, excited by the magic already entrenched there, eager to play out the dozen fantasies churning in the mortal mind which now gave it thought... enabling it to wield so much more power than its previous vessel.

Buffy looked from her sister's tired face to where Spike and Loki had been. She frowned. _Had_ been.

---

By the light of a match, Xander and Giles began crushing as many of the tiny glass orbs as they could, squashing the tiny spiders inside underfoot.

"I guess we know where he gets his supply—" Xander jumped on one of the tiny creatures which had already hatched and was dancing uncertainly on new legs.

"Yes it—" Giles brought his foot down forcefully on one, "—seems the larger one there was the mother. I would imagine they would all grow to the size we have seen, if not larger."

Xander was jumping quickly now, his feet crunching with every step. The spiders were hatching en mass now, the commotion awakening them from their natal slumber. Despite the best efforts of the Watcher and the welder, the floor was soon crawling with tiny spiders. All of which were starting to grow.

As one crawled up Xander's leg, he let out a little yelp of surprise, batting it off his pant leg and shivering. "Aahhh, this doesn't seem to be working…" He started for the stone steps which led to the firmly closed door, dancing his feet across the floor, each step bringing a wet squish. Before he got to the steps of escape however…

"Oh dear," and the Watcher's match went out.

---

Fifty Six

Spike tensed. He was unused to teleportation of any kind and this was the second such locomotion in five minutes. That was not the reason he was tense.

Above him churned a gargantuan storm; green tinged clouds promising meteorological violence and sudden flashes of lightning resetting the senses like a breaker switch. That was not the reason he was tense.

Before him stood the man in the white silk shirt, the white silk whipping around him with short snaps and his eyes seeming to light up green with each shock of lightning. This phantom which had stalked Spike, promised him death, clearly set on avenging something or someone…

That was not the reason he was tense.

Spike's feet stood on the edges of thin stone plates jutting up as parallel ridges from the ground far, far below. The crevice or chasm slicing down to the darkness between Spike's tense feet was what made him tense. He could see in the background and all around that the landscape was just this – a labyrinth of stone crests plummeting down to a ground some unknown distance below. And the two of them were perched precariously at the top of it, a foot on either side of one of the crevices.

As the lightning flashed again, spike caught sight of more green: the leaves of the tallest trees were just at the level of their feet some three hundred yards to the left and to the right. This battlefield of theirs was like some kind of tortured highway plowing through the jungle, the cracks on its surface running impossibly deep. Spike felt like an insect. He was tense.

"Do you like it?" Loki demanded, his voice exhilarated with the raw energy all around him and inside him. "The limestone forest of Madagascar!" He reached out his arms to encompass the daunting scenery. With the dark storm churning what seemed like only a few feet overhead, it was as if they were being crushed between dark cloud and dark stone.

Lightning cracked again. This time it did not snake its way form one end of the dark sky to the other: it snaked straight for the outstretched hand of the conjurer in the white silk shirt. His hand wrapped around it as if he were Zeus himself – and not just working for him. The air buzzed as the conjurer held the bolt of energy still, high above his head like a spear. With a crackle the hum intensified and the white bolt of lightning became brighter and took on an electric green glow.

"I have _waited_," the conjurer's voice, though not strained, was somehow audible to the vampire over the buzz of electricity, the rush of the wind in his ears and the roar of the surging jungle not far away. "I have waited a _long_ time for this, William the Bloody."

"Have we met before?" the vampire shouted into the wind, knowing he stood no chance against this wizard and his lightning bolts. His only hope being to stall him until Willow and Tara could hocus-pocus him back to the land of the sane. One thing all masters of the vendetta had in common: they loved to talk about it.

"Oh, you wouldn't remember me," Loki laughed a little, his fist quivering as the lightning bolt sizzled against his flesh. "But you do remember _her_." With a wave of his free hand, Loki removed the haze covering Spike's memory of the third Slayer he had killed. The vampire staggered noticeably as the memory poured into his mind like an extra hundred pounds of weight he suddenly realized was his own.

---

4 August, 1989, New York City

Spike threw the young woman against the side of the subway car. Her lover lay unconscious on the floor. The blonde haired vamp hissed as his face took on its natural, inhuman form. His hand closed around her throat.

"Wha's your name, slayer?" He hissed, lifting her by her throat from the ground.

"Fuck you," she gagged, driving her toe into his stomach. He groaned and dropped her, stumbling back between two seats on the empty car. Her foot connected with his jaw and he had to jump back to avoid the swing of her fist.

---

Spike slowly straightened up and looked Loki in the face again. The memory was there; solidly in place as if it had never gone. He remembered the fight, the déjà vu of fighting a Slayer on a subway. A Slayer named Niki. He remembered pressing his knee into her throat. He remembered the blond haired man was stirring nearby…

The vampire frowned with the sudden realization. "That was _you?_" It was hard to draw the connection between the pathetic bloke on the subway who had barely put up a fight to save his girlfriend –and in the end failed– and the sorcerer standing before him, holding a bolt of lightning like a javelin.

"That was me," Loki said with a sneer. He could hear the contempt in the vampire's voice. He accepted it. Scorn from a dead man was hardly stinging.

"All this is because…" Spike considered what would bite the hardest, "…because I had myself a _good day_?" It worked. Loki's jaw tensed. His hand tensed and he drew the lightning spear back, taking aim.

"Enough talk."

---

Willow and Tara watched the scene of Niki's battle with Spike and watched it end all from behind the glassy surface of the glowing red ball.

"He's going after Spike," Tara said with a little hesitation. Willow shared the hesitancy. After all… it was only Spike. Spike who had, as they had just witnessed, killed three Slayers – nearly four with the number of times he had gone after Buffy. Spike, who had been abusing Buffy when she was most vulnerable – who had gone behind her back and slept with Anya. Spike, who had tried to force himself on the Slayer barely two months ago, now with a soul and needing the two witches to secure his sanity, expected to be treated like one of the gang.

Tara and Willow considered going to the vampire's aid. They considered for a long time. Almost a minute. Then with a brush of her hand, Willow brought up a new image on the Dagon Sphere. Warren's lifeless body.

"He killed Warren," Willow stated. The witch thought about it. It didn't make any sense. It was too random an act. Warren had nothing to do with anything. He wasn't in Loki's way. It didn't help him get to Spike, or get to Dawn… Willow cocked her head. Or maybe, somehow, it had done just that.

"We can stop this," Willow said suddenly. She shook the malformed thought from her head and let it reform again, clearer. "I- I mean if he needed to go back in time and kill Warrant… it must have been for a reason. Something he hadn't seen in advance. It must have had something to do with what's going on now. It's too much of a coincidence."

"What do you want to do?" Tara's brow furrowed. Her classic worry-face had Willow in defensive mode instantly.

"If he can reach back in time, so can we. If he killed Warren, we can save Warren. We can stop this plan of his before all of this started."

Tara's worry increased. She seemed very disapproving. "Won't that create a… like a paradox?"

Willow was a little desperate now, this one plan the only one she could think of with any chance of success. "Well… yeah, and theoretically, we won't even remember ever doing it, but if it weren't for Loki, Dawn wouldn't have died that night, she wouldn't have run away and none of this would have happened!"

"I don't know if this is such a good idea… I mean, messing around with history? We could end up making things a lot worse. Couldn't we?" She had the tone of voice Willow recognized as not so much worried about the consequences of the spell, but her own ability to perform it.

"Worse?" Willow raised a doubtful eyebrow. She brushed a hand across the red glowing sphere and the scene of the monastery resolved itself from the red swirling clouds. What the witches saw inside Wilson's glassy face made their eyes grow wide. Blasting guns. Rampaging spider-monsters.

Tara looked to Willow sharply. "Let's do it."

---

"It was all true…" Dawn murmured, gazing past her sister into the new distance she felt inside. Her words brought Buffy's attention from the missing conjurer and Spike back to her sister.

A crease marred the Slayer's brow. "Why did you do it?" she asked in earnest. She looked hurt, almost betrayed. She had pleaded – begged Dawn not to touch the water. And yet she had. But Dawn was still looking into the distance, considering the consequences of all of what Loki had said being true – as if she hadn't really thought about it from this angle before.

Buffy shook her sister by the shoulders, snapping her attention back to reality. Buffy's expression was one of incomprehension. "_Why?_" she demanded, the question painful to say. "Don't you trust me? Don't you understand what would have happened?"

A look of profound tranquility settled on the teenager's face. The confusion had been lifted. She had found what she had been looking for. An ancient sense of peace and self-knowledge that few ever found within themselves had been glimpsed, just barely, by the girl as she found that consciousness she had been missing. It was there, she knew now. Little else mattered. "It's not about trust," she said gently. There was none of the resentfulness she might have exhibited in response to one of her sister's other lectures. For once, she was the one with the answers. "It wasn't hard to choose, in the end," she explained calmly. "I looked at you," she said simply, "and I looked at him," she glanced to where Loki had been a moment ago, "and I realized that when this was all over, I would be going home with you."

Buffy blinked. "But you didn't listen to me. Everything we knew said you would vanish; disappear without a trace or- or a memory, and you did it anyway. Why?"

Dawn made a sad little smile. "I can live with you being angry at me, resenting that I was right: that Loki was telling the truth — as long as I know that you and mom will be there waiting for me... in the end." She turned away for a moment, then turned back, her face reassuring, and took her sister for once by the shoulders, speaking as she was often spoken to; as if it were critical that the point be heard and understood. "But I couldn't have lived hating you —not forgiving you— if I'd listened to you and you'd been wrong. I couldn't do that."

Buffy's eyes softened. She considered it all. Then after a long moment she stood, helping Dawn to her feet. With a quizzical little frown, they looked about the room full of monks. Angel had been released and was standing uneasily among a large crowd of brown robed escorts.

Buffy blinked. "How… how _did_ Spike get here anyway? And where did they go?"

---

Spike shouted in pain as the lightening coursed through him, grazing his flesh in a burning, scorching mass of pain. He twisted and fell from the crests of rock where he stood and tumbled down the chasm, striking the rough rock at every turn. Before he hit the bottom, however, he felt the world around him dissolve.

With a groan, he rolled onto his back. Instead of looking up from the bottom of a deep crevice, he was staring at churning clouds again. He felt stiff grass under his prostrate body. He slowly got to his knees and looked around.

They were not in Madagascar anymore. Spike was now kneeling in the wind-whipped grass at the edge of a terrifyingly high sea cliff. Below the Atlantic crashed and churned. At the sound from behind him he turned, stiffly, very aware of the burn mark on his chest where the lightning had grazed him.

"You thought you could get away, did you?" Loki stood not ten feet away, feet planted firmly on the ground, a display of green lightning playing across the sky behind him, giving him a menacing backdrop. Spike had no doubt the lightning was at the conjurer's beck and call. "Found some sort of teleportation spell?"

"Some bloody bitter sand," the vampire said weakly. With shaky legs, he got to his feet, readying himself for some kind of fight. The kind that would end him. Without thinking about it, he charged the man in the white silk shirt.

---

Willow and Tara joined hands in the circle, the red glowing sphere at the center. "Cronus, father of time," they chanted altering the incantation they had seen Loki using, "as you were there at time's beginning, so you are there at its final count. Give us now the strength required to complete this task laid before us. Allow us to put right what has been wrongly done." The witches' voices were speaking as one, their eyes closed as the sphere grew more intensely red. "Set correct the path; the design; the story. Reshape what has been changed, give back the life that was taken, this we ask and to you we pray. Cronus, father of time..." There was not even the hint that everything was about to change.

…

"Your shirt," Tara said quietly as Willow looked down at the blood splatter there. Then the witch collapsed to the floor.

…

"Says the spider to the fly," Willow laughed and rose off the ground to look down contemptuously at the conjurer in the silly shirt. He would do for a boost.

…

"I don't know much about dreams," Buffy said timidly as Dawn looked anxiously from her desk chair. The Slayer sat on her sister's bed, then glanced down. "Willow and Tara were the experts on that sort of thing." Dawn also looked down.

…

Anya grabbed the Sphere from Loki's desk, ducking as another bolt of dark energy assailed her from an unseen foe. She disappeared, still with the bitter taste in her mouth.

…

Willow sat silently in the study of the house in Devonshire, England. Giles knocked on the open door before entering, carrying a cup of tea.

"What's wrong," he asked quietly.

The recovering addict blinked away her thoughts and took the proffered tea gratefully. "Oh, nothing's wrong. I was just thinking about Buffy and the others…"

Giles cleared his throat and sat down. "Yes, well, er… that's why we're here, isn't it? To help you control your power so that you can return."

Willow nodded silently. She set the tea back in the saucer on the desk without tasting it. Giles looked away.

---

Loki screamed as the scars of the old burns resurfaced all over his body, his mementos of his battle with the Willow-witch suddenly finding their way back to this reality. At that same instant, Spike tackled him around the waist, sending both of them tumbling into the long grass.

The wind howled around them and the ocean roared its anger. The clouds seemed to press in from above, like a suffocating blanket, smelling of ozone.

The conjurer could barely think, the wind knocked out of him, but as his thoughts came into focus and he prepared to defend himself out of need rather than pleasure, he lost sight of the vampire. In fact, he lost all contact with the blond haired anathema.

The conjurer slowly got to his feet, hunched slightly as he coughed from the force of the attack. He looked down at his hands. He could just see the thin white tendrils of the scars from the wounds that Willow had inflicted on him that night on the side of the highway. Only that wasn't supposed to have happened: Tory had advised the conjurer that night of how to change history to prevent the debilitating encounter. Tory who worked for Cliff. Cliff who wanted the Key for himself…

Loki's head snapped up with a harsh frown. If the witches had discovered how to use Wilson to change history… He took a step and felt the ache that was still there. He had never been good at healing spells. The price caught up to him now, all the way from an alternate universe, as his whole body felt the remnant pain of that battle two months ago.

He looked around; Spike was nowhere to be seen. If the battle between him and Willow had happened, Tara must be dead. If Tara was dead, Spike hadn't regained his sanity yet and was still cowering in the school basement. He frowned. But the paradox: if everything had changed, how could Loki remember it?

He flashed back to his incantation the night he had barely survived Willow's attack. He had made an entreaty to Cronus, father of time… he had killed Warren. He had isolated himself from the changes: created a bubble around himself preventing the paradox. It must still be in effect.

The conjurer looked into his own memory – the newly minted recollection of a universe he hadn't wanted to occur. Anya had stolen Wilson, not Willow. If they could change history… He had to get back – had to make sure nothing had happened to the Key, to his plans, to—

But with relief he saw the green light of the entity still inside him as he vanished again, appearing exhausted and still in pain back in the monastery, right where he had left.

---

Xander pounded on the door with all his might. He was alone in the dark. It had been a stupid idea to trust that Anya's magic dust would carry him to the same place as everyone else. And yet he had bravely stuck his finger in the pouch with Anya after they had discovered who Loki really was.

And now he was all by himself in a room which he was sure was crawling with something. It was pitch-black and he had no lighter or matches to see. But he could hear them. He had stepped on something like glass and all of a sudden he had gotten the creepiest feeling that the floor was moving. Moving on thousands of tiny legs.

First he had tried to teleport out. Anya had said the bitter sand worked for a two-way trip, but he was having no luck. It was as if something was blocking his efforts. He had found a wall, then found the staircase. Then he had found this door which was, unfortunately, very locked from the outside.

"Help!" he shouted at the top of his lungs. He could hear the scampering sounds of little things drawing closer, perhaps climbing the stairs. He pounded on the door. "Let me outta here! Somebody!"

There was a shuffling on the other side of the door and he heard a latch unhook. With an almost blinding light, the door opened. Not caring who was on the other side, Xander flung himself out of the darkness and into the figure in the light.

"Xander?" the voice sounded familiar in Xander's ears. He frowned as the door closed behind him with a boom. He squinted in the light to see a young red haired man who was partly supporting him and leaning back against the heavy door.

"Oz?"

Something big pounded on the door from the dungeon on the other side.

---

Buffy, Angel and Dawn looked up as, in a green flash, Loki reappeared just where he had left. Buffy rubbed her elbow absently. It still hurt from when she had dived over the table to try and stop Dawn… But that didn't matter now. The conjurer had been telling the truth all along.

"It was true?" the Slayer asked, stepping away from her sister and marching straight for the man in the white silk shirt. He seemed to be looking around quite intently, as if he was looking for something, or someone. At last his eyes caught sight of Charlie. He sighed in relief.

Relief flooded through Loki's entire being. The tortuous uneasiness of having one's history undermined; rewritten, by amateurs no less, and remembering it all… But all was good. Charlie was alive – still a contender in the prophecy of Aberjian… The Key was his. Spike was insane in the highschool basement. All was salvageable. He closed his eyes for a short moment and opened them to see the frowning face of the Slayer staring back at him.

"All of it was true?" she seemed still quite distrustful. Rightfully so, perhaps. "But if that light… that _feeling_ was Dawn getting her soul, then why did _I_ feel it? I already _have_ a soul." The Slayer's eyes searched Loki's own. She knew – there was no doubt – she _knew_ she had a soul and it was intact. Death had given her that at least. That knowledge was the only thing which had allowed any of this to make any sense. Buffy understood Dawn now: They understood each other.

Loki slowly tilted his head. His mind was elsewhere and his body was still adjusting to this punch-line of Destiny's latest joke, but he agreed it was an interesting phenomenon.

"Answer," Buffy said harshly, taking another threatening step towards the silent conjurer.

"I created her," Loki said as if they were having a perfectly intellectual conversation. "I created her _from you_. One blood. That's how you could take her place in death. One blood: One soul. Genetically, you are identical." He tilted his head with a little smile. "It looks like you share more than just each others clothes. You share one soul."

The Slayer looked back to her sister whose eyes had dropped to consider this. It seemed to fit some inner alignment of truth because she slowly nodded. She looked up and locked eyes with Buffy again. She nodded again, fully accepting every word the conjurer said.

Then Loki looked at Dawn for himself. It's over, his mind confirmed. As he looked at the girl who was physically identical to his own murdered daughter, genetically identical to the Slayer standing before him, and yet completely different from both, he realized it really was over. He felt nothing for the girl. They Key was his. He had achieved what he had worked for – fourteen years of work and still he stood silent as the stones in the floor. He stared at the girl in the burlap robe, dripping wet from the water. She idly ran her thumb over the bite wound on her arm.

The silence of the room was suddenly shaken by the great front doors of the monastery as they opened with the cool breeze of evening. Anya dashed inside, breathless as the _whump whump_ of helicopter rotors stirred her clothes and sent ripples across the pool of water on the floor.

The vengeance demon gasped for breath, her hand on her chest. She had run as fast as she could up the formidable steps to reach this place, arriving just as the mysterious black helicopter had located the entrance for which she was headed.

"There's…" she panted, nearly doubled over. "There's…a…"

But before she could finish, dozens of black clad soldiers charged through the open front door wearing tactical helmets and carrying automatic weapons. They filled the place up, each soldier taking careful aim at a monk or the Slayer. Soon the room was filled with a web of red as the guns' laser sights found their targets through the cloud of dust the chopper had raised. Everyone in the monastery was too stunned to say anything as this intrusion of cold modernity appeared in the middle of their ancient ritual place.

It took only seconds before everyone had red laser dots over their vital organs and even the Slayer froze, completely taken off guard. Buffy slowly turned to look at Dawn who was similarly wide-eyed and speechless.

Loki would have immediately covered himself in a cloak of invisibility, but he could neither summon the strength, nor the speed to accomplish it. He simply put his hands up like everyone else as two guns pointed at his chest.

Two soldiers at the door stepped aside and a clearly uniformed man stepped forward, not masked like the others and obviously Chinese. He walked past the Slayer and the conjurer, the latter's eye's carefully averted, and stood in the exact center of the room. He slowly looked around, searching all the faces. His eyes rested on Angel's thankfully human features for a moment longer, then found the still vampiric snarl of Charlie. The man in the uniform reached out an arm and pointed to the vampire in the brown robe.

"_Xiĕxīng-gŭi,_" he said to his men. _Vampire_. They roughly took Charlie by the arms and led him through the motionless monks. Roughly tossing him to the floor before the man in uniform, Charlie snarled and bared his teeth. He looked over his shoulder to the white clad conjurer whose gaze was directed at the floor. The conjurer who was his protector. The conjurer who told him he was special.

Deng straightened, his chest swelling with pride. "You are all under arrest," he said with a great authoritative voice. No mountain full of monks could stand in his way. That sorcerer Haargan was dead now and could not stop them. The Zhŭdòngxìng had finally gained authorization to raid this place – and Deng had no intention of botching it. Nothing non-human would be given quarter.

"You are accused of vampirism and are hereby sentenced to death," he said to the robed vampire on his knees before him, "to be carried out immediately." He glanced to one of the soldiers who lowered his gun and pulled a black wooden stake from an inner pocket in his flak jacket.

Loki's eyes widened in horror as the solider thrust the stake unceremoniously into Charlie's back, piercing his heart. The conjurer trembled with a fury which could no longer find expression in the power he was now lacking. There was no frost under his feet or heat from his hands. Only a weary force trying hard to go on: stolidly keeping him going, reacting to nothing. The anger was all the more futile. He was no longer the Loki which could have set this mountain aflame with his anger. That conjurer was a world away.

The brief existence of the third vampire with a soul was snuffed out in a puff of ash while the solider returned the stake to its pocket.

Deng turned around, his expression businesslike yet conveying a distinct impression that he enjoyed his job. "Which one of you is Logan Kilpatrick?"

Loki wanted to vanish – with the Key he could do it. He wanted to be anywhere else. He wanted to find Wilson and make everything better… his thoughts slowed. He let it all fall away in the sunyata as his eyes closed. At last it all fell away. He swallowed. He understood now why he wasn't yet satisfied: why years of work to acquire the Key brought him only a temporary victory: Cliff was right. That great, powerful demigod had seen all the way through the deception Loki had used, even against himself, to steer his life away from the real pain. The real loss. Logan Kilpatrick didn't want the Key. He didn't even want retribution for the death of his lover. He wanted Hanna back. And he realized now that the Key couldn't give him that.

Buffy and Angel both pointed to the man in the white silk shirt. The monks shifted uneasily, but the hands holding the guns were unflinching.

Deng walked towards the distinctive figure that had his eyes closed, as if praying. "Logan Kilpatrick," he said, noticing a distant, echoing shouting from somewhere behind him. He ignored it. "By authority of the Zhŭdòngxìng, you are accused to sorcery and are… hereby…" Deng frowned and turned. The shouting was drawing nearing as were the sounds of pounding feet.

Several soldiers raised their guns towards the rear passageway as two figures charged out into the main chamber, breathless and seeming not to care about the half dozen automatic weapons trained on them.

"Run," Xander panted, trying to catch his breath.

Deng frowned and squinted into the darkness of the rear passageway, the torchlight flickering uncertainly. His eyes widened as an eight-legged monster lurched into the light, waving its giant mandibles at the room full of edibles.

Eight hairy legs spread out from the relatively narrow hall into the broad main chamber, dragging the bulbous weight of the massive thorax and abdomen behind. It raised its mandibles high, glistening fangs the size of long-swords sliding out into view.

Xander and Oz scrambled away from it, heading for the front door. Xander grabbed the terrified Dawn while Oz took Buffy's arm and led her away from the beast. Everyone seemed to be transfixed by the sight. Even the spider was nearly motionless, swaying gently in the new found fresh air and multitude of prey.

Then with a lurch it was forced all the way out of the corridor as another set of eight legs and fangs squeezed into sight. Behind it came another.

Angel slipped out of the grip of his well armed guards while they watched with morbid fascination the legions of enormous spiders begin to fill one end of the chamber. Soon the monks and paramilitary men were backing up towards the front door. All guns were now trained on the monsters and the lasers could be seen streaking this way and that, moving from target to target uncertainly.

Only Loki and Deng were unfazed. The Chinese commander of the Zhŭdòngxìng, China's equivalent of the Initiative, was profoundly annoyed at having been interrupted, even more since it made him look as though he were unprepared.

He looked around hurriedly to his soldiers. "Don't just stand there! _Shoot them!_"He drew his own pistol and began firing at the nearest spider. It was not lost on him that these were the same breed of creature he had sent to take out Logan Kilpatrick when the conjurer had first arrived. In fact, it made him all the angrier.

At Deng's orders, the room exploded with gunfire, the one side a swath of fire from the muzzles of automatic weapons and the other side a spray of spider blood and a sea of waving legs. With a deafening crack, someone began firing a high powered rifle.

Buffy led Angel, Xander, Oz, Dawn and Anya out the front doors as the bedlam began, racing out onto the upper stone terrace, heading for the long flight of steps leading down to where they had left their helicopter.

From here, however, they could see that the commercial helicopter Angel had hired had abandoned them and a sleek black military style helicopter had taken its place. Two more black choppers circled above in the darkening evening sky, no doubt spotting the fleeing group.

Buffy looked around, feeling trapped on all sides. Their helicopter was gone. They were trapped on this mountain in the middle of nowhere…

"Here," Anya pulled the small sack of slightly bitter sand from her belt where she'd tied it. "Everyone eat some of this." Xander immediately drove his hand into the bag, eager to be as many continents away from the arachnid nest as possible. The others looked dubious.

"Would you prefer to stay here?" the vengeance demon demanded, annoyed at their hesitation. Buffy and Angel each reached in for a pinch. "That's what I thought."

Dawn was more hesitant, but in the end took a tiny pinch of the sand and dropped it into her mouth. She made a disgusted face.

"Oz?" Xander looked to the young red haired man in the brown robe. "Sure it tastes bad, but you can't argue with results."

"I'm not going with you." They all looked to him with confused eyes. Dawn and Angel's expressions seemed to soften.

"You want to go back and help him," the teen said quietly. It was a statement more than a question. He didn't need to nod to affirm it. Dawn understood his feelings. A part of her wanted to charge back in there and stand with Oz between Loki and the forces which wanted to destroy him and his legacy… but she knew she would be of little help.

"You want to _help_ him?" Buffy looked as though everyone else had lost their minds. "Am I the only one here who can tell the bad guys from the good ones anymore?"

Angel gently put a hand on her arm. "Buff…" She resigned with a small shake of her head.

"You guys go. For once this isn't your fight." Oz said with firm resolve. He turned and began heading back for the raging battle in the entrance to the mountain. He crouched low and willed his kaya of transformation to bend to his will. He felt the wolf begin to emerge. "Give all my love to Willow," and he was gone, racing on all fours, tearing his robe from his werewolf body as he charged into the maelstrom of bullets and legs.

From the dark sky, a bright spotlight found the small group and lit them up. Anya looked hastily around, looking for any remaining reason they hadn't left yet.

"We have to go," she insisted. With a thought she vanished before their eyes. In the blink of an eye, Xander and Dawn followed. Buffy and Angel looked from each other to the havoc in the monastery.

"I'm going back to L.A.," the vampire said quietly, his face in sharp relief in the light of the helicopter's searchlight.

Buffy answered, just as quietly, despite the ruckus nearby. "I know." Several soldiers repelled down on black ropes from the nearest chopper, leveling their guns at the pair. "Thank you – for trusting him… and for helping Dawn when I couldn't."

Angel just barely smiled then vanished. Buffy was gone in a thought.

The soldiers looked around for a moment, their guns trained on nothing, then they marched into the monastery, intending to take out the lycanthrope they had seen going back inside.

Moments later, seeming to be without a care in the world, a lone figure in a plum jacket and a fedora finished his long climb up the stone steps to the monastery and headed towards the door, his appointment with Destiny drawing very near.

---

Logan Kilpatrick stood with his eyes closed in the crossfire between the firing squad of Zhŭdòngxìng soldiers come to kill him and the legions of spiders which kept pouring out of the bowels of the mountain, also here to kill him.

Inside the sunyata of his mind, his three kaya were slowly wheeling in perfect sync. He could feel the sting of bullets racing past him, the foul breath of the spiders in front of him, and the constant thunder of munitions and monstrous bodies on the stone building, but it was all outside of himself. It all slipped so easily into the grey featureless mist. He could turn down the volume on that world as if it were a noisy radio station. The Key was silent.

In the presence of the spiders – a gift from Deng the first week Logan had come here – magic was silenced. The conjurer had found that out when he had tried to kill the first of them, and later had used it to his advantage as a nearly unstoppable killing machine. Either the Key was subject to that law like all the lowly magic at the conjurer's disposal, or it had silenced itself. Either way, Logan's mind was tranquil in the midst of unleashed hell all around him.

Then, as if he really had dropped off the face of the Earth, the hell itself was silenced. Logan opened his eyes, half expecting to wake up in a dream state or in the grey sunyata void inside his own mind. Instead, the result surprised him. In front of him was a great rearing spider, looking like it had been about to come down on him with lethal force. But it was frozen, motionless in mid-attack. Similarly the other spiders were frozen, in various poses of attack and retreat.

Logan turned slowly around. From where he was standing he could see the dozens of black-clad troops frozen in firing positions, gouts of flame hanging frozen form the barrels of their guns. The conjurer squinted. Hanging in the air were hundreds of tiny silvery objects, the motionless bullets from the motionless guns.

Logan caught sight of Deng, fallen under the attack of a werewolf that the man in the white silk shirt knew well. Both were frozen, locked in a death-grip which defied gravity.

One figure alone stepped out of the hell which it seemed had frozen over. The figure tugged absently on his plum jacket, a wry grin on his face.

"What _have_ you gotten yourself into?" Whistler ducked under a cluster of floating bullets and approached the silent conjurer.

Logan couldn't conceive of what he could possibly say. What could he possibly say? So he said nothing as the demon appraised him, looking him over and nodding appreciatively. However Whistler had escaped the necromancer, it relieved a nagging sense of shame Logan had carried since his violent murder of the friendly demon.

"I'm Tory's permanent replacement," the demon said with a twinkle in his eye.

"Did _I_ do this?" the conjurer swallowed the feelings that seeing this old friend brought up. He indicated the motionless mayhem.

Whistler laughed with amusement. "Nah, I did. You have no _idea_ the power of that thing you've got inside you. It would take centuries for you to learn how to use it. That's why it was never yours to use. A caveman would have better luck with an atom bomb."

"Are you just here to save my neck, then?" Logan carefully moved out of the path of bullets and out from under the path of a spider.

"I'm here to make sure you do what you're supposed to," the demon replied, picking one of the bullets from the air and gazing at it curiously. "Make sure you do what you agreed to."

"You mean give it up… to him." Logan thought of Cliff, the demigod to whom he had promised to give the Key… under the threat of it and Dawn being destroyed forever.

Whistler didn't answer. Instead he crouched low on the stone floor and, with the bullet he had pulled from the air, drew an invisible circle around himself. Standing again, he turned to the conjurer with a little grin, as if somehow, despite even his own death, he was and always had been fully confident that everything would turn out the way it should.

Letting the tiny bullet fall, Whistler took hold of his hat with both hands. When the bullet bounced from the floor, the floor – indeed the universe – inside the circle the demon had drawn disappeared into a bright white portal through which the standing demon dropped, as if stepping into a an open manhole on the street.

Logan had seen this display before and knew where the portal led. That place which had been heaven, ruled by that being which had been God. But now…

With no other options, Logan shook his head once and stepped off into the bright circle on the floor, plummeting down into light as the monastery above tore itself apart in fire and fangs.


	7. Chapter 7

Part VII – Last Rites

Fifty Seven

Underfoot was the billowing cloud of the living white marble. Not bright and glowing now as it had been, the stone floor was dark grey and turbulent in the dim light. Footsteps resonated in a cold and empty manner.

Overhead was the black star-studded sky of a vast and alien universe. No familiar constellations here. Loki looked ahead to where the light was streaming from the broad doorway at the top of the wide marble steps.

Whistler was barely more than a silhouette as he walked ahead of the conjurer, starting up the steps. The demon's footfalls sounded in the vast emptiness of this place like a beacon of solidity in a realm of the ephemeral.

With one last glance behind to see that there really was nothing behind but inky void, Loki started forward across the roiling cloudy floor. The clouds within the marble seemed to feel each foot at it landed, tugging at the conjurer as he crossed the courtyard to the expanse of marble steps. Whistler was already at the top by the time Loki began his ascent. The demon waited at the top, the brilliant light from beyond the doorway throwing his clothes and face into harsh relief.

Loki had to squint and finally shielded his eyes with one hand as he and Whistler at last entered the universe of light beyond the doorway at the top of the steps. The black, starry sky vanished inside this world and all was shining light. Loki now recognized it as the great hall of the being he had visited earlier – that supreme demigod known as Cliff who commissioned such players as Tory and Michael to do his work on Earth. That same supreme demigod who had been striving for millennia to achieve Loki's own goal: the acquisition of the Key. To that end, Cliff had stepped in and employed Whistler to pluck the irreverent conjurer out of the path of gargantuan spiders and a haze of bullets.

As the conjurer's eyes became accustomed to the brilliance of Cliff's domain, he became aware that he and the demon in the fedora were not alone. Ahead of them, before the white pulpit on the white marble dais, the brilliant light seemed to have a texture. Not shadows, precisely: the light was ubiquitous and allowed for none, but the depth of the light varied enough for Loki to perceive figures. Hundreds of kneeling figures.

Against the distant and ever-changing fresco which was the rear wall were framed the shapes of hundreds of kneeling worshippers. Loki looked to the left and to the right. Beyond the colossal marble pillars flanking this great hall were many more thousands of kneeling figures – millions perhaps, stretching off until they were lost in the glare of the brilliant and perfect light. Loki swallowed.

Each figure was subtly and sometimes drastically different from the others. The light seemed to radiate even from them, but differences in stature could be seen among them. Dark skin, light skin, long hair and short. Men and women both. Some demons with horns and some with scales. All wore gleaming white silk shirts, their necks encircled by blue silk ties. Each bended knee was clothed in black pants. Each pair of hands was clasped upon the knee in supplication, each head bowed.

The conjurer's gaze slowly dropped to his own attire. He could see that here his own shirt radiated its own light. His hands and fingernails glowed as they hadn't before, as if he too belonged here. His khakis seemed faded and out of place and his wide open collar made him feel underdressed for this occasion. An uneasy feeling accompanied his realization of who had given him the silk shirt.

A hand found his shoulder and he looked up. Whistler patted him comfortingly with a smile on his face. The demon too seemed to glow, though he too seemed out of place in his plum jacket and fedora.

Loki was about to speak when a gentle rumbling began, as if thunder were quietly taking its place in worship here. Loki looked back towards the pulpit to see a new figure there. Zeus, Odin, Jehovah, Ra, Brahma… these names could not possibly describe the being before them. How the name Clifford had ever been selected by this being itself mystified the conjurer. The entire bowing multitude bowed lower in the presence of their god.

Loki remained standing. This was as much for his benefit as for Cliff's. Merely nodding his head in one slow motion of greeting, the conjurer left the now kneeling Whistler and walked slowly forward. As he approached the dais, Loki could make out more detail in the worshippers kneeling there. He immediately recognized Michael and Tory both of whom were dressed in identical silk attire.

The still undefined figure of cliff stepped down from the dais and approached the conjurer, his face and body gleaming so brightly as to obscure all detail. The voice as rich and pure as an orchestra reached out to the conjurer as Cliff extended his arms in greeting.

"Welcome once again to my home, Logan Kilpatrick." The light seemed to wane and the conjurer found himself looking into the smiling face of himself… almost. Neatly combed blond hair, bright, energetic face, blazing white silk shirt – collar encircled with a gleaming blue silk tie.

Loki slowly cocked his head. The thought, as ungracious as it was, sprang to the forefront of his mind. _Don't you have a face of your own?_ The smile wavered on Cliff's borrowed face for an instant. Though it had only been a thought, Loki felt the kneeling multitudes shift uneasily as if they had heard it too.

Then the smile returned. Loki felt a pang of shame. Though he knew Cliff was no god, by the being's own admission, the conjurer felt guilty for showing so little respect in this place of worship. He inadvertently averted his eyes, quickly catching himself and looking back up again. What he saw made him blink in surprise.

Instead of the long-haired, almost invisibly scarred conjurer, Cliff stared back at Loki from beneath short trimmed blond hair and from within a brown blazer.

"Don't you?" came Cliff's reply at last to Loki's question. "This is what you truly look like, isn't it, Logan Kilpatrick?"

"My name is Loki," the conjurer replied coolly. He began to realize that despite all this show nothing had changed. Cliff was just trying to banter away their time until he demanded from Loki the one thing the conjurer found it impossible to part with.

Without needing to voice it, Cliff understood the conjurer's position and turned away, heading for the dais. "You are a snail challenging a hurricane. You think your shell gives you strength. You think you see a weakness in the eye of the storm—" the demigod turned around quickly, his face now the mask of Spike. "But you risk all. I will _not_ suffer your disobedience."

Before Loki could respond, Cliff turned again. The being strode to the fresco – the living painting which depicted the entire history of all worlds and which was Clifford's only direct link to the universe outside this hall. With the hand of William the Bloody, he reached out and took hold of one particular figure which appeared upon the surface.

With a terrible keening like scraping glass, the floor of the great hall shook and the light became too bright to tolerate. When the afterimage faded from Loki's eyes, he blinked at the figure grasped tightly in Clifford's arms.

"I told you I would kill her," the demigod said harshly, his strong hand gripping Dawn Summers' throat threateningly. The girl made a weak whimper as the iron grip fastened tight. "You believed that because you tore my Key from her that she was safe? You believed that you would use my Key to escape me and abandon this dimension to my wrath?" Cliff's grip lessened. Dawn was able to relax a little and Loki noticed she was fully conscious – no chance she would dismiss _this_ as a dream. The demigod had somehow pulled her physically out of reality and into this domain. "But you cannot possibly grasp the full potential of the thing you possess. It was designed by beings beyond any human's wildest conception, for their use only. I alone, in this dimension, am capable of wielding it." To Loki's unfazed expression, the form of Spike cocked his head. "You don't believe me?"

"I do believe you," Loki said cautiously. "I believe you would kill an innocent girl – to try and coerce me into giving you the Key… But what kind of a God would that make you? The kind I should cooperate with?"

There was a pause during which uncertainty crossed the mask of Spike's face. Then Cliff released Dawn altogether. A smile spread across the being's face and he wagged a scolding finger at the conjurer. "Do not think you can trick me with such simple words. I am not cruel by nature but do not mistake me – I will butcher nations to take what you owe me."

Dawn staggered to the side and backed out of Cliff's reach, looking around with confusion and wonder. Seeing Loki nearby, she slowly circled around and made her way towards him, never turning her back on what appeared to be Spike.

"It's okay," Loki glanced at her and offered reassuring words, none of which he himself believed. "Don't worry, he won't hurt you—"

"Then you'll give me what I ask for?" Cliff cocked his head – his features melting into those of the towering Werlech demon. He stretched out a leathery black hand, as if the key were just in Loki's pocket. Dawn was taken aback with surprise, clutching Loki's arm for security.

"You need me to give it to you, don't you?" Loki raised an eyebrow. "I'm the only one for centuries who's had the power to _hand it over_ to you…" Loki squinted at the towering form of the demon who had stolen his soul."And once you have it, what guarantee do I have that you won't kill us all anyway?" Loki felt the surge of unrest in the thousands of worshippers as this mere conjurer openly accused their master of treachery.

Cliff almost fumed; his long antlers angling back as he raised his chin proudly. "I could burn your bones to ashes in a heartbeat, yet I stand here with a hand extended. It is called courtesy, Logan Kilpatrick, though I don't expect you have much experience with it."

The conjurer heard footfalls behind him and he saw Whistler approaching. The demon in the fedora wore a supremely troubled expression and as he laid a hand on Loki's shoulder, the conjurer could guess what he would say.

"Give him the Key, Loki. It's not yours to keep. Do as Cliff asks."

Loki stood with a totally unconvinced expression on his face. He had been growing more and more doubtful as Cliff's anger grew – the conjurer was testing to see just how far a god's patience stretched. A glance to his right told him Dawn was wishing he would just get them both out of there. But something was nagging at him. Something he had seen… in Cliff's own mind. Something hidden. Not a lie, just a part of the demigod's mind which Cliff was urgently unwilling to share. Like a blind-spot it hung in the room, obscuring something and becoming more and more obvious as Cliff's tension grew.

"You see, I'm just not convinced you are who you say you are… or more correctly, that you don't remember who you really are." The conjurer gazed into the dark, animal eyes of the Werlech demon. "So why don't I tell you a story?"

The conjurer turned with a brisk pace and strode into the masses of kneeling worshippers. He could feel Cliff's emotions as easily as if they were painted on the vast mural behind him. Something was hidden out here, among them, and Loki had a suspicion he knew what it was. He looked back to see Whistler and Dawn staring at him as if he were crazy.

"Our story begins millions of years ago," the conjurer recited in his best story-teller tone, "a powerful being ruled with cruelty and depravity unmatched in all the dimensions of creation. He delighted in the horror he conceived and acknowledged no equal – not even the Powers who had formed him." To Loki's delight, the fresco behind them all began to show the events he described, confirming at least part of the conjurer's suspicions.

Dawn and Whistler looked to it with curious wonder. Dark jungle and colossal stone temples. Effigies to a terrible ruler surrounded by pyres and burning subjects. Not human, but creatures enough like humans to evoke the same sense of revulsion at their treatment. Hundreds of sacrificial altars drenched in blood, forests of bodies on spikes and the grotesque results of foul magic used as only a glutton for pain could conceive. Screams rattled Cliff's domain and the kneeling worshippers shifted in both discomfort and interest.

"A lust for blood unmatched among all the Old Ones." Loki strutted between the rows of kneeling figures, probing the anxiety of the being which surrounded and permeated him. "But the blindness of his arrogance was his undoing. The other Old Ones grew fearful of you and banished you here to this… prison. Trapping you where even your great power could not free you. They left you with this—" Loki indicated the immense fresco, "to torment you with a view of the world without you. Able to see but not to affect, you were abandoned for millions of years. Witnessing even the downfall of your own kind: the death of the Old Ones and the vanquishing of the last of the pure demons."

All but Cliff and Loki himself watched the mural with rapt and morbid interest as the battles of ages long forgotten raged and surged in vivid color across the mural. Demons the likes of which had not been seen on Earth in millennia were trampled underfoot, primitive humans finally gaining the field.

"And you were forced to watch even as humans took possession of your kingdom, spreading and multiplying, becoming prosperous in your absence." Loki felt from Cliff's stern glare and from the anxiety in the room that he was close to hitting the mark, both in his story and in his position among the crowd. "But then you made a terrific discovery. Though you could not leave this domain, this prison, others could enter. Those races who had been slaves in your time thought themselves royalty now. The common demon, the half-breed vampire, they grew powerful and some found their way here. So long had you been imprisoned that they had no memory of you and you found you could convince them of a great deal." Loki glanced around the hall at the many kneeling figures, a tone of almost contempt and pity in his voice as the living fresco enacted his words. "You used them as your agents on Earth, writing yourself into the religions of countless cultures, preparing them for the day when you would return and rule them again… but you never found a way to break free from this… Olympus, until almost a thousand years ago."

Whistler's eyes narrowed as he watched the story unfolding behind the being he had worshipped as a god and as a conduit to the Powers That Be. The story he knew well of the coming of the Key to this dimension and its capture by the knights of Byzantium. They all watched flashing steel and the tall horned demon who now stood as a mask for Cliff himself.

"You had it in your grasp…" Loki closed his fist for emphasis. "So close you could taste it. Holy men – men of God were in possession of the key to your prison door. But they betrayed you, didn't they? They understood all too well the danger of what they had and so they hid it, for centuries, even from you."

The great wall showed the monks of the order of Dagon hurrying to their hidden monastery, the clay urn hidden in many bundles of cloth, containing the water in which the Key lay dormant. By light of many torches, the knights of Byzantium ransacked church after church, tearing apart every hiding place the monks had ever visited. At last a long trek east through blowing snow and high mountains; an agreement with the prelates of the Tibetan lamasery led the Key to its long time resting place.

"Nine hundred years is a long time to look, Clifford," Loki said with some small amount of understanding in his eyes. Loki's own decade seemed terribly insignificant by comparison. "You had all but abandoned your search, finding no power left on Earth strong enough to free you. So you resolved to raise those very beings who had imprisoned you here in the first place. They alone had the power, and it was your hope that returning the world to them, cleansed of the human and half-breed demon scum who had infested it, would garner enough gratitude to ensure your release. Your agents were hard at work…" The conjurer felt the pang of panic as he stopped next to one particular kneeling figure. "Whistler, recognize someone?" The conjurer hauled the vampire to his feet. With a hateful grin, the vamp acknowledged the conjurer and the demon's attentions.

Whistler frowned for an instant, then his eyes widened. He looked from Cliff to Loki to the vampire in amazement. The vamp was wearing a white silk shirt and blue tie like all the others, but Whistler would have recognized him better in a black Armani suit, carrying a briefcase.

"New York City, nineteen eighty-six. He brought the Nosphoric plague to wipe out all humans and vampires from the Earth in preparation for the New Reign and resurrection of the Old Ones. You remember, don't you Whistler? You fought side by side with me against him." The conjurer held the vamp roughly by the white silk shirt he wore. Loki raised a mocking eyebrow and glanced from Whistler to Cliff. "Oh, he didn't tell you the Creep was one of his agents? Didn't tell you he'd been planning the destruction of human kind?"

Whistler and many among the kneeling multitudes watched with new eyes as the two armies clashed on the fresco, the Creep at the head of one of them and Whistler among the generals of the other. The battle of Atlantic Avenue was the culminating battle of the demon civil war of eighty six. It had cost the city many of its strongest demon clans and vampire covens. It had also led to many human deaths.

"But then Whistler told you about me – about how I had found the Key. Once again you could think of nothing else. You realized I had the power to bring the Key here to you, to give it up to you. So you used my considerable ambition to further your own."

Dawn had a confused and hurt expression on her face. She was aware to some extent of what was going on, but she now saw her own face appear on the great churning painting before them: The vicious smile of Glorificus as she roughly handled the young girl.

"You…" she looked from the conjurer to the demigod. "You both were using me?" She looked at Cliff with unassuaged confusion. "But I'm not the Key anymore… what am I doing here? Where is this place?"

Everyone seemed to ignore her as Whistler spoke up, a hurt expression on his own face. He too, he realized, had been used. He had been betrayed by the very being in whom he had placed the most trust. "You were using me to spy on him… to get to him. But before… You wanted to destroy them all? You pitted us against each other without our knowledge, played us so that we would be distracted as you prepared to raise the Old Ones. But… you had me help Angel. He was my project – how could that possibly have been part of your plan?"

"Angel was vital in helping Dawn get to me," Loki allowed the Creep to fall to the floor where he again took up a kneeling position. "For all we know, Angel still has some part to play in the raising of the Old Ones. Cliff has seen it all in his magic mirror." The conjurer took a threatening step towards the demigod, a defiant curl in his lips. "But I had my own crystal ball. I didn't realize any of it at the time, but the clues were all there. It all makes sense now. You're the only one who benefits from it all."

"Lies," Cliff dismissed, but the fresco continued in the background, ignoring his defence. "Your clever fiction will accomplish nothing. The Key is mine!"

Loki continued, undaunted, feeling his own momentum. "Michael you used to save my daughter's soul so you could use her as leverage later. Whistler and Tory to keep me off of Spike until you knew the Key was ready—" he glanced to Dawn who was watching the image on the fresco of Loki himself peering into the red Dagon sphere, "—ripe for the picking."

Clifford scowled behind the dark mask of the Werlech demon. He felt the obedience of the throng around him diminishing. Whistler was already lost. This Loki was causing more damage than Cliff had ever thought possible – and there was no way to stop him.

"You told me yourself that you imprisoned Glorificus in her human form." Loki felt the old Logan Kilpatrick shining through in all the strength and swagger of a criminal attorney as he strode through this radiant white hall, strong accusation in his voice. "You who distorted the memories of the knights of Byzantium to keep the Key from their "barbaric empire," you were able to distort the memories of those who witnessed the Glory/Ben transformation, allowing Glory to do your work for you – finding the Key after I had hidden her."

Dawn's breathing quickened. She backed slowly away from the dark horned creature, moving even behind the harmless looking man in the fedora and plum jacket. The events of her discovery by Glory as the Key played out on the fresco.

"But once revealed, you couldn't allow that mere hell-god to take what you so desired, so you allowed the Slayer and her Watcher to kill Glory. And at last you manoeuvred me into the position of taking the Key for you. And here we are."

Cliff's form suddenly melted into that of an old and weary man in a tweed suit. The first form Loki had seen Cliff wear, the conjurer recognized it as his own grandfather. The fresco showed the present – the mirror image of those assembled in the great white hall, except the form of Clifford on the fresco was a dark and boiling cloud of smoke. Cliff reached out and with an invisible grip took hold of Dawn and lifted her into the air. There was an air of fury and desperation in the Old One now that his identity had been dragged to the light for all to see. No more pretence of decorum or benevolence.

Dawn tried to draw breath but a crushing force seemed to be wrapped around her chest, like a python squeezing the life out of her. What breath she had managed to draw hissed out between clenched teeth with a spray of blood. She felt the sickly crack of bones as the grip tightened viciously.

"Let her go," Whistler demanded, removing his hat and stepping towards the girl who hung in the air.

With a wave of his other hand, Cliff brushed the demon aside with force enough to knock him across the hall and into one of the white marble pillars. All around the great hall, figures were standing up, some in anticipation, some in objection. It was clear that the unquestioned worship of Clifford had ended.

"You're not a conduit to the Powers," Loki accused, as if it were one of the most damaging things he could say. "You're a fossil from an age of supremely evil monarchs. You belong with the rest of your kind: Dead and buried."

Cliff sneered from inside his wrinkled, white haired costume. "I will kill her. Pop her like a balloon." Dawn's legs kicked feebly as consciousness spun away from her. Her last sight was the vast mural scanning through the various perspectives of the present and settling on one in particular – showing Buffy and Xander looking around for where the teenager had been only a minute ago.

"You will let her go, or you will never get your precious Key." Loki was slowly making his way to Dawn, not at all confident in his ability to counter Cliff's immense power, but at least aware of an exit if necessary. "Killing her would serve you no purpose. You think I have some attachment to her… But I know she is not my daughter. She is just a thing. Like a fungus I grew in a Petri dish. It's me you want to kill. It's me you hate so much."

Dawn's body slumped suddenly to the ground and she sucked in a laboured breath, coughing up blood. Loki helped her to her feet as consciousness found her again. He could tell she was badly injured, several ribs likely broken…

"You've waited for millions of years… and _I've_ gotten in your way." Loki's eyes blazed as he marched towards the furious demigod. "The Key is _mine_, Clifford. You have nothing to take away from me."

"I could make you feel such pain you would never forget," the wizened old man's eyes grew wide with wrath, his universe tipping on the edge of oblivion. "I could rip your entrails out through your eye sockets and leave you dangling for the birds to feed upon. I could drink you dry and grind you to dust!"

"But you would still be here!" Loki challenged, his voice just as harsh. "_Trapped; forever_." He stared down the being – the King of this chessboard, knowing he would never sacrifice that one most powerful player. "I would have to _give_ you what you want so badly. But you know what?" he turned to the fresco and the image of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. "I don't think I want to." With a slash of his hand, the conjurer tore through the image on the fresco. There was a terrible keening and the light became blindingly bright.

When the afterimage a faded, Clifford looked around. Loki and the girl were gone. His wrinkled old eyes widened. His hall, in fact, was almost completely empty. Only one or two figures remained standing amid the white brilliance. _What was going on?_ He turned around in a rush and all color drained from his face. He stood upon the dais, staring past the pulpit at the vast expanse of the fresco. It stood as high as the eye could see and as far both left and right – completely blank. A great crack marred its featureless surface, through which the conjurer and the girl had escaped into the real world before the mural was destroyed.

With nothing, now, to give him a window into the outside world and his millions of subjects having abandoned him, Clifford turned back around to his vast empty prison. His wrinkled old face contorted in agony and he drew in a deep breath to roar, effortlessly reverting back to his true form. The brilliant light of the domain faded to darkness and the great and terrible creature stood upon the gritty stone floor of his prison, howling with rage into the infinite black void.

One figure at last walked forward out of the darkness – one of the last of the agents to remain loyal to Cliff, despite knowing his true nature. The vampire known throughout history and myth as the Creep finally drew near to the last living Old One. He slowly pulled the blue silk tie from his neck and with a stiff hand tore the white silk from his chest. After a pointed pause, he went down on one knee and bowed low.

--

Fifty Eight

30 June, 2002, Sunnydale

Loki and Dawn appeared in a bright flash of light right where the teenage girl had disappeared a few moments earlier. Buffy quickly scooped her into her arms as the younger girl collapsed, coughing up blood.

"What the hell happened?" the Slayer demanded, pulling her sister from the conjurer. "Kidnapping her once wasn't good enough? Now you're torturing her too?"

Dawn was shaking her head and wincing at the sudden motion and Loki had his hands peaceably in the air. "Not me. My boss and I had… a bit of a falling out. It's over now – he won't be hurting anyone anymore."

"How did you escape that mess in your monastery?" Xander asked, sitting Dawn down at the table in the middle of the Magic Box as Buffy went to call for an ambulance.

"You mean that mess _you_ made?" He shrugged. "My boss wanted to have a word with me. So I disbanded his followers and left him trapped in a prison dimension." He stared with a hard expression at Xander's surprised demeanour. "I think he learned his lesson. Don't fuck with—" the conjurer looked up suddenly as the Magic Box door opened and a familiar face looked in.

Whistler tipped his hat to the others in the store, then aimed a finger at the conjurer. He silently beckoned for Loki to join him outside. Saying nothing more, the demon closed the door behind him to wait.

Loki reached down and touched Dawn's chin, to Xander's disapproving frown. Loki ignored him. "Dawn." There was quite a bit he wanted to say… he wasn't sure how much of it he really wanted to say to Hanna, but it wasn't possible to separate that anymore. "I just wanted to say sorry for everything I put you through. I don't have to tell you it will be worth it, but I want to thank you anyway for trusting me." She made a weak smile, despite the pain of every breath. "I'll be looking in on you from time to time…" he sighed. "Good luck."

Without another word, he left the Magic Box, the bell above the door jingling behind him. Whistler was waiting for him, looking appreciatively at the giant corpse of one of the dead spider creatures Loki had set upon them all.

The demon didn't look him in the face, but took in a lungful of fresh morning air. "You know, you can be a real dick sometimes." He let he statement hang between them, not expecting a response and getting none. "You didn't have any proof of all those accusations you made against Cliff, did you? You were just making that stuff up as you went along, weren't you?"

Loki's lips pressed into a tight smile. He glanced down at his shoes, chuckling a little. "When did you figure it out?"

Whistler glanced at him for a moment, then back at the spider. "Before you opened your mouth."

Loki raised an impressed eyebrow. "In that case, you played your part well. You even had me convinced. You do betrayal very well."

Whistler laughed. "Yeah, well, I've had some practice."

The conjurer nodded at the subtle jab. "It all made perfect sense, though, didn't it? And whatever the details, he is an Old One. We convinced the rest of them, anyway. And I destroyed his window – he won't be a threat anymore. I may not be able to end the game, but at least he's not a player anymore."

"We didn't convince all of them," the demon warned, glancing up into the bright summer sky. "And you're right – the game still goes on."

"And I'm at least a knight by now, right?" Loki turned to the demon, already sensing the amusement the demon felt at this.

"Loki, we who were gathered there were not in service of Cliff. It may have seemed that we worshipped him as a god and it ended there, but our first and only loyalty is to the Powers That Be. Clifford being taken out of play doesn't change anything for us."

"You thought he was your conduit to the Powers!" Loki argued, desperate for his actions to mean something. The conjurer looked down at his silk shirt. "And you were… _grooming_ me for a life in service to him? You expected I would take my place among those mindless millions?"

"It's not that simple—" the demon sighed. "We're all doing our small part… and whether you know it or not, you are too. Those who were gathered there are the ranks of those who understand their part and participate willingly. None are braver than those who choose to play." He turned and reached out to the conjurer's white silk collar. "You're a very ambitious pawn. And you just made your first check. You've done well, but there is still one last thing you have to do."

Loki felt himself hardened to his friend's attentions. "The Key."

"It's not yours. It never was and never will be." There was an air of apology in Whistler's voice. He did not enjoy disillusioning so eager a player, but this was too important to postpone.

Loki's cool eyes stared long into those eyes beneath the brim of the fedora. A gentle breeze blew through his hair and disturbed the loose folds of his shirt. "It's my only salvation," he said quietly, pleading quite literally for his soul. "It's the only way I can see my daughter again."

Whistler blinked slowly. He took in a deep sad breath and patted the conjurer gently on the shoulder in the bright sunshine. Not so unlike the bright sunshine in New York when Logan Kilpatrick had lost what he had since been searching for. "Logan… the Werlech demon did not just steal your soul. He didn't take it and put it in his pocket. It's not kicking around in some demon world or swimming in a dimension full of shrimp. It's gone." He gripped the conjurer's shoulders as the words penetrated. "It's gone Logan. You can't get it back."

Loki blinked slowly, his breath deepening as the words struck deep. "You knew all along, didn't you?" There was no malice in the accusation. Just understanding. "You needed me to find the Key – that's why… you let me believe…"

"Give us the Key, Logan," Whistler insisted softly, taking his hands from the broken man's shoulders. "Give us the Key and in exchange you can go back to your monastery and there waiting for you will be your daughter, in the flesh. No illusions, no deceptions. Real as anyone has ever been to you."

Loki looked up with uncertain hope in his troubled eyes. _How is that possible?_ But he knew the response before he asked the question.

"Have faith, my stupid friend." After a long pause during which Whistler searched the conjurer's eyes for his deepest intentions, the demon drew a small knife from his pocket, flicked it open and drew the blade across his own palm. A streak of blood appeared on the demon's hand. Without a word, he handed the blade to Loki, who took it after only a heartbeat.

Loki drew the blade across his own palm, the demon blood on the steel mixing with his own. In his mind, he felt the green energy become excited again. Though it took all of his considerable power, the conjurer lifted the green, swirling energy from the niche it had found inside the hollow man. Loki pressed his bleeding hand to Whistler's and with a rush of brilliant and breathtaking green light he yielded the Key to the servant of the Powers before him.

Whistler closed his eyes and gasped at the sensation. Then the demon staggered back, the green glow subsiding in his chest. With a deep breath, he opened his eyes and smiled. The smile was genuine and grateful. Without a single word, he vanished in a flash of green.

Loki was left alone in the bright summer sunshine. Alone and empty again. Empty forever.

--

Fifty Nine

30 June, 2002, 60 miles West of Chamdo, Tibet

Loki appeared in a twist of light in the center of the entrance hall of his monastery, the beginnings of a familiar headache pulsing between his temples. To one side, a monk with a broom was sweeping away the hundreds of bullet casings littering the floor. Blood and various fluids still pooled on the floor between the flat stones.

The conjurer frowned in some confusion. "What happened?"

The lone monk stopped his sweeping and pressed his hands together in a bow. "Master Loki, you have returned." The monk glanced at the disarray. "I'm afraid the men with guns were driven out by the spiders, sir. The helicopters departed some time ago."

"The spiders?" Loki prompted.

"All escaped into the mountains, sir, following the helicopters east," the monk replied.

"What happened to Deng?" the conjurer asked, recalling he had last seen the commander in close combat with a familiar looking lycanthrope.

"He escaped with them, sir," the monk said with a bow, "though under some guard as it seems he received a rather substantial bite from our Mr. Osborne."

"And Oz?" worry creased Loki's brow.

"In his regular chambers, sir." The monk waited for more, but when Loki hurried off he returned to his sweeping.

Loki marched down the dim stone passageway to Oz's chamber. He was about to burst in and scold the young man for being so reckless when he paused. With a little sigh he raised his fist and knocked politely.

"_Come in_," came the call from within.

Loki gingerly opened the door and stepped inside. Oz was sitting at his desk, a book laid out and some manuscripts lying about on the bed. There was a period of pointed silence during which Loki kept quite silent.

"You missed the show," Oz said finally. Most of the distrust he had built up was gone, but he still didn't know what to make of the conjurer in the white silk shirt.

"I caught one of my own," the conjurer replied, treading lightly. "I'm glad to see you're okay." There was no reply, but Loki could sense he was back in the young man's good book. "Will you be staying?"

Oz glanced back over his shoulder, seeming to think about this for a long moment. "Under one condition." He waited for Loki's response but hearing none he continued. "No more restricted access."

Loki nodded. "Fair enough. Mi casa su casa." The conjurer looked around the room, somewhat distracted. Whistler's words gnawing at him. "Have you seen, by any chance…?"

"She's in your room," Oz answered before Loki could finish. "I didn't know when to tell her you'd be back." Without another word, the young man went back to his reading.

Loki was out the door like a bolt of lightning. He dashed down the hall and around the corner and stopped at the closed door to his own private chamber. By the torchlight the heavy wooden door seemed like one of the much talked about barriers between dimensions. On the other side of that door…

The conjurer made an executive decision not to think any more about it. He took a deep breath and pushed the door open; his eyes alight with expectation, the word _Hanna_ on his lips.

But the girl who waited for him had blonde hair and hugged a black leather jacket around her like a blanket. She had her back to the door and was looking into the red glowing Dagon sphere on Loki's desk. When she turned around, Loki's eyes widened more than they ever had. His heart nearly stopped.

The girl couldn't have been more than fourteen, but wearing that same tortured black leather jacket over a simple white t-shirt, she was the spitting image of her mother. The girl glanced down at a small picture she had in her hands, the only evidence her mother had left her as to who her father might be, then back up to the conjurer at the door.

"L- Logan Kilpatrick?" she asked, her crystal clear voice penetrating right through to Loki's heart. "I'm Sami Valtaine. I- I'm your daughter."


End file.
